One door was completely ajar. Zed slinked in, gawking at the lavish gold-trimmed molding that lined the floor. In the center of the room, some kids crowded around a computer screen. They eagerly beckoned her over.
“Have you seen this?” a tall white girl asked excitedly.
“Seen what?” Zed replied.
“This!” a white boy sporting a crew cut shouted, reloading a YouTube video. A small hole formed in the huddle. Zed stepped in, focusing on the computer screen. The screen was black, but the sound of helicopter propellers was unmistakable. Ten seconds went by. Zed turned and looked at her peers. Their faces were brimming with anticipation, poised for something they knew was coming. Zed pivoted back toward the computer screen. The blackness continued for a full minute then suddenly vanished, a column of light materializing from nowhere, a big bang. Zed continued watching, anxious to see how the video ended. It was clearly footage from the tag. The crew cut boy started to snicker, followed by the tall white girl.
Eventually everyone was laughing, and the light gave way to a picture of Kanye West. “Flashing…lights, lights,” everyone in the room started murmuring, backed by the video, which was now sampling the song. “I don’t get it,” Zed confessed.
“It’s just a mash-up video I made making fun of this whole Stone Mountain shit,” the boy informed her. “The whole thing is silly. Some asshole just committed arson. It’s way more simple than people are allowing it to be. I’m already at four hundred thousand views!”
“So you’re saying it’s arson when someone carves a letter into a mountain?” Zed asked.
“It was probably already there. Stonewall Jackson is very well-respected in Civil War circles. My dad’s into that shit.”
Zed immediately left the room, her anger materializing as sweat as she headed toward the kitchen. Theo and Apollo were sweating even harder, dancing in place on gleaming hardwood floors. Zed couldn’t recall the name of the dance, but she was sure she’d seen it online. Standing at the edge of the kitchen, she watched their bodies awkwardly jerk, imperiously directed by the thin marionette strings of the dance’s savvy inventors. This was a dance that could only be learned through piecemeal imitation, one viral video frame at a time.
“The Kiki!” Zed declared to herself, remembering the dance’s name.
“Ki, ki, ki, ki,” she watched Apollo chant as he swaggered about, swaying in place while rolling his shoulders back and slapping his upper back. He looked like he was honing a single step of the Macarena. Theo met Zed’s eyes then ducked out of the kitchen.
“What are you guys doing here?” Zed asked Apollo, entering the kitchen and placing a firm hand on his shoulder. He immediately stiffened.
“Looking for some friends.”
“Did you find them?”
“I think so.”
“Did they want to be found?”
“Didn’t get to ask.”
“Why not?”
“Phone problems.”
Zed smirked. Apollo continued. “I saw your tweets. Why are you guys at a party where the host is someone that Sol uppercutted?”
“Are those the only tweets you saw? I’m pretty sure I had a few about my boyfriend who did nothing while his parents treated me like shit.”
“I told you my parents were crazy.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me you’d be such a pushover about it,” Zed snapped, storming out of the kitchen and toward the pool.
° ° °
Apollo followed her, brushing past gawking eyes, Sol’s, Theo’s, and Kai’s among them.
Zed was planted at the edge of the yard, her back to the party and her neck craned upward, moonlight washing over her like a tractor beam. Apollo anchored himself beside her, idly shuffling through his pockets. Still nothing but fabric. Words formed in his mouth but failed to condense outside of it, stifling his thoughts. His hands listlessly scrambled through his pockets. Was he about to get the silent treatment that Kai was always giving to Theo? He hoped not.
Eventually, Zed spoke, her voice calm but still tense. “What was it like up there, Apollo?”
“Where?”
“Space.”
“Nothing new. We’ve looked at Google Earth a bunch of times. You know that. I actually found another available satellite earlier today. Want to look through it later?”
“I didn’t ask what it looked like up there. I want to know what it felt like. You weren’t just looking at Earth. You had your own giant spray can pointed at it. How’d it feel?”
Apollo spoke immediately. “It was amazing. I never felt that powerful before in my life. It felt like I was doing exactly what I wanted, like pure freedom. It was like tagging, but it didn’t feel like it could ever be whitewashed or painted over, you know? It wasn’t a giant spray can. It was power. Just power.”
“I thought so,” Zed briefly replied, her voice trailing off. Another stretch of silence began. The sound of cicadas erupted back into Apollo’s ears as if they’d somehow been paused while he and Zed were talking. Apollo tried to let his mind drift along the crest of the insects’ dull drone, escaping into the night, but Zed’s mute hostility pulled him right back into the intensity of the moment. Again, the cicadas paused.
“We’ve got to do it again,” Zed announced. Apollo didn’t respond.
“We’ve got to do it again,” Zed repeated, her voice lowered further, to a hiss.
“That was a onetime thing, Zed. It can’t be repeated. The satellite isn’t even showing up online anymore. It’s probably been decommissioned. This isn’t like Jerry’s grave. What we did will be there forever. No one will ever wipe it away.”
“No, Apollo, you’re wrong. No one knows what happened but us. It doesn’t have to be wiped away if no one even sees something to wipe.”
“But isn’t that what we wanted?”
“Yes, but not like this. We wanted to tag the city, not throw up a billboard! People are already dismissing what happened and making fun of it! ‘I Had a Beam’ is being used to promote a fucking Major Lazer album! I don’t even know who that is, but what the fuck? Even if it’s not me being remembered, that’s not how I want my work to be remembered. I refuse.”
“Calm down. All art gets reused eventually. We can’t control how people receive it. You have to let go.”
“Don’t give me that meme bullshit, Apollo. This isn’t the fucking internet where things get a second chance. This is the real world, where things always mean what they will always mean, where arrows fly straight and they either hit the target or they don’t. Even if it’s just our secret, if we don’t change how it’s understood right now, it will never mean anything else. Jerry will be a joke to the entire world. And it will have been our fault.”
Apollo stared at the moon, contemplating ways to redirect the shame that was bubbling in his gut. Where are those cicadas when you need them? He could feel the insects whirring around him, but they were nowhere to be found. In their absence, he found the sounds of Charli XCX. Apollo sighed. Someone had overridden his playlist. He knew he should have used a more complex encryption algorithm. At least this person had taste, though.
His focus returned to Zed, whose back was still turned to him and the party. He wanted to give her an answer, but variables swarmed through his head like maddened ants. Someone could snitch, someone could die, they could kill people, they could get caught, they could be hunted by drones. Apollo shuddered. Was Jerry, someone he hadn’t even known about twenty-four hours ago, really worth all that? Why was his so-called legacy so important? All he had seemed to do was be a friend. Was friendship really worth hijacking a military weapon and using it for a tag…again? It felt worth it the first time. The tragedy of Jerry’s life spoke to Apollo on a primordial level. He’d enlisted in Theo’s crusade against Six Flags, but he was born into Jerry’s struggle against the police. How could he turn away from that? How could he t
urn away from Zed?
Apollo found himself gazing into the moon again. Silently, it stared back at him, offering light but not answers, opaque in its very luminescence.
“I’m down,” Apollo stammered, his eyes locked on Zed’s back. She turned, her hair swinging over her shoulder like a raised mace. She stepped forward and faced Apollo directly, almost confrontationally. Apollo expected a slap, but received a peck instead, her thin lips slickly gliding across his. Grabbing his left hand, she led him back to the party, where they proceeded to corral their friends. Kai and Theo were sitting poolside, the quiet splashing of their partially submerged legs the only sound between them.
° ° °
“Where’s Sol?” Zed asked.
“Probably caking. You know how she does,” Theo said. “She just understands women, I guess.”
“It’s not hard,” Kai said, removing her legs from the pool, rising, then leaving Theo behind.
After lingering for a moment, Zed and Apollo continued toward the house, hands still clasped as Theo and Kai filed behind them. The party was dying down, its death fueled by a rumor that there was an even better party in Peachtree City. They found Sol on a couch in the living room, curled up like a hermit crab, her shell the chest of Alice, who was also dozing.
“She never talks about juvie, but I feel like this was what probably happened,” Kai snorted, inciting a booming collective laugh. “This bitch is over here making literal bosom buddies,” Kai continued, summoning a second wave of guffaws. Sol stirred at the sound, dazed yet compliant. She quickly rose, following them out the front door.
After making plans to convene once Waffle House reopened, the crew split up, exchanging hugs and daps and retreating to their cars, which were parked on opposite sides of the lot. Despite the setbacks of the day, both known and unknown, Zed felt there was resolution in the air. Maybe Sol will finally talk, she hoped. Kai had told her about the liquor cabinet.
High, but somehow still perceptive, Kai pointed out an object lodged between the windshield wipers of Zed’s MINI. Kai grabbed it and read it aloud: “Hey angels I knew you would come to my party. You’re welcome, bitches. Je suis Charlie.”
“Oh hell nah. You got some paint? I’m gonna tag the shit out of this McMansion motherfucker.”
Zed shrugged and climbed into the car, starting it. “Let’s just go home,” she said. “I promise you we can do something much worse. Trust.” Kai laughed and obliged, opening the passenger door and plopping down into the seat. “Fuck Fayette County,” Sol declared, folding into the back seat as the car pulled out onto the street, the night taking them in like family.
“What does DC smell like?” Rick asked.
Tilly kept her eyes on the road, pretending she had missed the question. She knew he would ask again, but she had learned to cherish these silent interstices. They didn’t happen often.
She never played her music when she drove because Rick always found something to say about it, and although it was inconvenient, moments like this made it worth it.
If it weren’t so dangerous to look at Rick directly, to encourage him, she’d steal a glance just to see how happy he was. It was enviable how radiant he looked when his voice was filling a room. Or her damn ear. His mouth would just erupt, his lips spreading like wings, his teeth emerging like a butterfly from chrysalis, a smile pouring forth, transfiguring his entire face. She wished she could smile like that.
Instead, she continued to stare ahead, concentrating on the unending sea of bumpers, the slowest stampede. Most people in the city weren’t even off yet, but traffic was thick.
“Did you hear me?” Rick finally asked, concerned.
“Yeah. It doesn’t have a smell.”
“No smell? I don’t believe that! You grew up there, you went to college there, and you worked there. There’s gotta be some smell you caught a few times. Cherry blossoms, black squirrels, motorcades, spilled craft beer, chili bowls, bodies in the Potomac. That’s gotta smell some type of way!”
“It doesn’t have a smell,” Tilly said flatly.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s on you. I can’t tell you what to believe.” Christ, Tilly thought, he’s dragged me in.
“That’s true, but something I do believe is that this is our case. Like the one. You know how every partnership has that one case? Somerset and Mills got the seven deadly sins case. Riggs and Murtaugh got the South African diplomat case. Peretti and Appleton got fucking Nino.”
“You know all of those partnerships are fictional, right?”
“Yeah, but that’s not important. What’s important is that they agreed when they found the one that they were going all the way in. No mercy. Maximum tradecraft.”
“Sure. We’re not cops, though.”
“Damn, that’s a good point,” Rick said, defeated.
Tilly secretly rejoiced as traffic began to thin out. Escaping from I-20, she merged onto Lee Street, heading south. To her surprise, Rick didn’t say anything as they sped past the West End Mall. He usually had a story or five from his days as a janitor there, but he remained silent. I could get used to this, Tilly thought.
Eventually they reached the movie studio formerly known as Fort McPherson. A bespectacled black woman greeted them at the security post.
Tilly rolled down the window, wincing as hot air slithered into the car.
“License and affiliation,” the guard said gruffly.
Tilly extracted her license and FBI ID from her purse and handed them over. “FBI.”
The woman examined the cards closely then shoved them back into the car.
“First right, third left, second lot. You’ll know the building when you see it. Don’t get lost,” the guard warned, retreating back into the post.
Tilly rolled up the window and drove forward.
“Tyler Perry must have opened up a strip club,” Rick joked. “The security here is better than ours.”
Tilly laughed, extending their stop at the first intersection to regain her composure. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be here,” she eventually said, easing the car into the first right turn.
The parking lot was empty except for a single unmarked vehicle and a golf cart. Their destination, a solitary brick building, was also unmarked, Tilly noted. No sign or marquee or placard. Maybe it was a movie set. Casually, they strolled into the building. A balding white man sat at a bare reception desk, his face alert.
“Erickson and Herrington?” he asked, jolting to a stand.
Tilly nodded. The man darted from behind the desk and led them down a short hallway, pivoting into an open doorway in one easy motion. Walking past empty offices, Tilly and Rick shuffled in behind him. The room was windowless and bare, lightly furnished with a giant wooden table and far too many office chairs bunched around it, like pups fighting for their mother’s teats. The man closed the door and immediately began speaking.
“Sorry for the rush, but I’ve only got this conference room for ten minutes. Space is really limited around here.”
Discreetly, Tilly kicked one of the empty chairs between them.
“As you know, I’m with Space Command. We protect, deploy, and maintain US government satellite equipment. During last month’s incident, Satellite ZX9874 was hijacked and used for unauthorized purposes. Within certain limitations, I have been tasked with helping you find out the means of that breach as well as the perpetrators. Please direct any questions about this satellite toward me, and I will be happy to oblige. Within certain limitations.”
Tilly spoke first. “Fantastic. First off, this is embarrassing, but what’s your name? Our director tends to be brief in emails, so he didn’t mention it.”
“Unfortunately, it’s classified.”
Tilly kicked another chair.
“So, how is this even possible?” Rick asked. “How does a satellite t
hat’s so strategically important get hacked?”
“I can’t speak to whether it is strategically important or not, but this happened solely due to the nature of this satellite. When this former base was decommissioned and sold, some of the infrastructure was left intact due to security reasons that I’m not at liberty to discuss. Moving or rebuilding that infrastructure would have been extremely costly.”
“More costly than a national monument and surrounding neighborhoods being destroyed?” Tilly bristled.
“Terrorism is not a line item on the Space Command budget,” he dryly replied. “And monuments and neighborhoods can be rebuilt. The kind of infrastructure that enables a satellite of this caliber isn’t a matter of just unplugging some computers and uploading data to the cloud.”
Tilly glowered. People loved to use “the cloud” as a whipping boy, as if it were any more nebulous than “space” on a hard drive the size of a thumb or “visiting” a web page.
Rick jumped in. “Okay, sure, this satellite has some unique circumstances, but in terms of personnel, who is capable of this? Do you have a watch list or anything? Particular countries, organizations, individuals?”
“Yes, but that’s classified.”
Tilly sighed. Was this what big cases were like? Evasions on top of elisions on top of elusions? Maybe she should have been a journalist. Then she’d at least be able to get away with a write-around, using the gaps as an indictment.
In the Heat of the Light Page 6