We Are Satellites

by Sarah Pinsker

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  JULIE

  Julie had a theory. She believed that one should never for a moment let into her head that she was as happy as she could possibly be. Every time she had ever allowed that thought to nuzzle at her, every time she’d extended her open palm to it, it had bitten her.

  Once, eight months pregnant with David, lying on her back in bed, thinking, I am so happy already. How could having this child be better than preparing for him? Later that night the pain had started, and the problems that had nearly caused the loss of her own life and David’s.

  She had allowed the same thought in the night she held Sophie for the first time. She’d wanted a second child badly, had wanted David to have the sibling neither she nor Val had. When the doctors had said she couldn’t have another, adoption was an easy second choice, not second choice at all. Val had been for adoption all along, even if the process took far longer than they’d anticipated. She remembered when Sophie’s seizures had started, the first ones a terrifying absence, moving on to other, even more terrifying variations.

  And she’d been stupid enough to let that thought into her head when David came home from his last deployment and said he’d left the military. Finally, she thought. Finally I can stop worrying. Stupid. She was a numbers person, a facts person. She allowed herself one superstition, but she couldn’t even get that right. It was a statistical fact: every time she had that thought, something went wrong.

  Or maybe she took the wrong conclusion from the numbers. Maybe perfect happiness was impossible, and all good was temporary, all good came with a chaser of bad, because otherwise how would you differentiate?

  David was hiding something. He went to work every day as he had since he’d returned stateside. He came home different. Before, at dinner, he’d talk about interesting trainings, or at least he did when Sophie was out. He’d talk about what it was like filming promos, or, if pushed, the surreality of being recognized.

  No stories now, no matter how she and Val pried. The funny thing was, he didn’t look like he was avoiding her questions. She couldn’t get anything out of him. How was your day? Fine.

  She knew what a bad patch at work felt like, when everyone was on her about something or an election loomed close. He didn’t look stressed, though. Muted; like he’d run out of things to say, but he didn’t mind. On the nights he ate dinner with them, he closed his eyes while he chewed, didn’t volunteer anything, didn’t ask any questions. Other nights, he came home late and went to his room and shut the door.

  He was an adult. She resisted the urge to pry: Is something wrong at BNL? Is it Milo you’re hanging out with or someone else? None of it was her business, even if he was living under their roof. He’d always been an open kid; he would talk when he was ready.

  That was what she figured, until the day she followed him by accident. She had finished a project early and couldn’t start on her next until she got one additional document that hadn’t yet arrived. A good excuse to head home, except when she left the office, the day she ran into was so perfect she felt like it would be a disservice to the planet not to acknowledge it in some way. Perfect days were a rarity.

  She shouldn’t have followed him. Wouldn’t have if she hadn’t pulled up behind his car sitting at a four-way stop as if it were a red light. She waved, but she couldn’t catch his eye in his mirror, so she put on her flashers and waited as other cars stopped at the intersection, eyed him, then proceeded. When someone honked at both of them, she waved them around.

  Just when she was going to get out and ask if he was having car trouble, he started moving again. She followed. Not to spy; spies had discretion. She tailed him from right behind, so he could easily have seen her if he’d looked. That made it okay.

  He crawled through several intersections, nearly causing accidents at each, and she followed him, a strange entourage. A parade of two.

  He drove past four schools, a hospital, and two business parks, and each time she assumed he would pull in, step out with a display-in-a-box, but he kept going until he reached the waterfront park’s lot. She pulled in a few spots away.

  Again, she hoped he’d lace his running shoes or, really, do anything to indicate purpose. He walked into the park with what seemed like no intent whatsoever. The funny thing was, this had been exactly where she’d been considering going; they hadn’t been to this park since before David had deployed, though it had been a favorite when the kids were younger.

  The playground had been updated, the splash pad, too, and the long corridor of weeping cherry trees that ran along the seawall was still stunning. The trees were older and fuller than she remembered. People sat on the benches that punctuated the trees: a couple of women with matching haircuts and a wire-haired mutt twining around their feet; two older men engaged in some handheld game battle; a little girl trying to drag the woman she was with toward the splash pad. Parent? Sibling? Nanny? Julie was no good at telling ages anymore; Val had always been better at that, since she worked with teenagers.

  The next two benches were empty, and if her afternoon in the park hadn’t turned into a David hunt, she’d have considered sitting to watch the water. No, more likely, she would have pulled out her phone or her tablet. She wasn’t good at doing nothing. Not in the same way as Val, who craved motion; hers was something else. She often thought their compatibility came partly from how she and Val both lacked an essential stillness; it meant they each understood the other’s activities, even if they didn’t share them.

  She kept walking. The mutt she’d passed went flying by, trailing a leash. She reached to grab it but missed, then stepped aside as one of the women ran past, yelling “Radish!”—presumably the dog’s name, not an enticement. They made it past the next bench before the mutt spotted a Weimaraner and made a beeline for the leashed dog, whose walker immediately started shouting, while trying to keep his dog and leash from getting tangled with the loose dog, now growling. The pursuer tackled her dog and dragged the wayward Radish away, the two still snapping and lunging at each other.

  Julie took all of that in while also taking in the person sitting on the next bench. The curly hair, the ramrod spine. She was one hundred percent certain it was David, except David would have grabbed for the loose dog; the guy on the bench didn’t turn his head toward the commotion. It was David, obviously David, but something was off. She remembered the way he’d scanned the area on their first trip to the mall after his return, and his tension at baseball games all summer, trying to keep track of everyone around him.

  “Hey, Davey,” she said, walking closer to the railing so he’d see her.

  He startled. “Oh, hi, Mom.”

  He smiled at her, then returned his gaze to the water. She sat on the bench beside him and looked to see what had his attention: ducks. She watched for a minute before impatience overtook her.

  “What are you doing out here? I would’ve thought you’d be at work.”

  He turned to face her. Something in his expression unnerved her. It was an absence of expression, really: an unexpression, an unalertness, his eyes unsparked. Everything about it was un-David.

  He didn’t answer her question, and after a minute she wondered if she’d asked out loud. They watched the stupid ducks for another minute or ten; she couldn’t tell how long because they were watching ducks.

  When he finally spoke again, she almost didn’t recognize it as the answer to her question, there had been so much separation between the two. “I’m not working at BNL anymore. I’m looking for a new job.”

  She opened her mouth to say the first thing that came to her: What are you talking about? Just as quickly, she imagined how Sophie would respond if she asked something like that, the defensive turn the conversation would take. Proceed with caution, calm, nonchalance. Channel Val. “Oh. I didn’t know. You can tell me more if you’d like.”

  He shrugged. “They said they were going in a new dire
ction.”

  “Oh.” She matched his placid tone again. “Was this today?”

  “Nah.”

  He wore his BNL work polo and slacks, so either he was wearing them to job interviews—odd given the tech no doubt woven into the logo—or he was wearing it to fool his family when he left each morning. In which case who knew how long he’d been doing it. She wanted to ask when. She didn’t.

  “I’m sorry, kiddo.” The funny thing was, he didn’t seem particularly upset. He didn’t seem anything at all; he looked peaceful. “I feel like I’m disturbing you. Do you want to talk about it? Or do you want me to go?”

  When he didn’t answer, Julie stood. “See you at dinner?”

  Another delayed response. “I’ve got plans. I’ll see you later, though.”

  She kissed the top of his head and left him to his ducks. She had to let him decide when to come to them for help.

  * * *

  • • •

  That night, neither kid appeared at dinnertime. Val had made some variation on green curry, bright and spicy. Both kids would’ve liked it, even with the brown rice.

  “I know they’re adults,” Julie said, “but they should still tell us when they aren’t coming to dinner, as long as they’re both still living here.”

  Val shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “It’s rude. You’ve gone to the effort of cooking for them.”

  “They’ll eat it as leftovers. I was going to cook this much either way so we’d have lunches. What’s the difference? It’s not like it’ll go to waste.”

  “Still.”

  “You said ‘they’re adults’ a second ago. You know they’ll get irritated if they think we’re trying to limit them. I don’t want to do anything to make them think we’re keeping tabs.”

  “I’m not talking about a curfew. Just common courtesy.”

  She had no reason to be irritated over Val’s nonchalance, but she was. Val was always better at these things. Better at letting them loose, better at understanding where they were coming from.

  Julie had a piece of information her wife didn’t have, about the odd conversation with David at the park. Would that change Val’s tune, if she knew David pretended to go to work? He hadn’t asked her to keep it secret, and she didn’t intend to, but she decided not to mention it now. Not for any reason, but because if Val shrugged that away, too, she’d go from irritated to upset. It was worth being upset about. He was lying to them. Was lying to them part of being an adult? Val would say he was free to make his own mistakes, that given the chance he would sort it out. Which was probably true.

  Julie cleaned up after dinner, then joined Val in the living room, settling in the reclining chair. It wasn’t as bad as when David had been deployed, but her habit of scanning for news about them was a hard one to break. She checked the local police and emergency feeds. When she didn’t see anything, she logged into the anti-Pilot action site’s chat in her GNM persona, looking for Sophie.

  GNM!

  Hi Grandma!

  A few regulars greeted her, then went back to the conversation they’d been having before she arrived. She scrolled back and saw they were chatting about an upcoming neurologists’ convention they were planning on interrupting. Sophie had been part of the conversation a minute before and chimed in again a minute later, suggesting a tweak to the plan. It was a good tweak, but better yet, it meant she was safe wherever she was. When GNM responded enthusiastically to the idea, it was as much for that as the idea itself.

  Sophie wrote: Learned something that I’ve been thinking about a lot. Did you know it’s possible to turn a Pilot off but leave the light on? Is there any way we can use that information?

  Julie read the post, then read it again, then a third time. Other posts piled onto that one, musing on the possibilities. Maybe this was a turning point. If the Pilot no longer implied a better worker to employers, maybe it would no longer be a source of job discrimination.

  Was it really possible? She looked on BNL’s Pilot FAQ, the one for people considering getting their first Pilot, but she didn’t see it mentioned. Q: Can the Pilot be turned off? A: Yes, if you need to, you can have it turned off, though the number of people who have done this is less than one in ten thousand. There was no mention of keeping the light on.

  Julie had wanted her Pilot, but it hadn’t hurt that it demonstrated she was committed to improving herself in the name of improving her work.

  GNM wrote: I wonder if that would lead to employers doing working interviews that tested function instead of assuming based on the blue light. They still have to maintain the illusion they’re not discriminating.

  She hoped she wasn’t explaining something Sophie had already thought of. If she’d said it as herself, Sophie would roll her eyes, say, Isn’t that what I said?

  Sophie wrote, Good point, GNM! Yeah . . . maybe we sit on this until we see whether it’s useful info.

  The door opened.

  “Hey, Davey,” she called.

  Val glanced at her, surprised, and she realized she shouldn’t have known which kid was at the door from her position faced away from it. She knew because she was conversing online with Sophie, and Sophie didn’t tend to use her devices in transit, so she was either at home (which she wasn’t) or at her meeting space. Julie shrugged as if that was an explanation.

  “Hey, David,” Val said, but he still didn’t respond. Then, as he headed upstairs, louder, she deepened her voice to mimic his. “Good night, Moms?”

  “Oh, hi,” he said. “Good night.”

  Val raised an eyebrow at Julie. This would be the time to tell her about the weirdness at the park, but she didn’t mention it. If Val thought their kids were adults allowed to come and go as they pleased, then she shouldn’t care if they didn’t say a proper good-night, either. She’d tell her once Val acknowledged she was right. They were adults, but there were rules of engagement. There was courtesy. Family had different rules.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  SOPHIE

  It had been three weeks since she and Gabe sent a copy of David’s stolen e-mail to Eduardo Toledo, and Sophie assumed he’d passed on the story. She hadn’t sent it to anyone else because she didn’t know what else to do with it. If the journalist who had been most interested in working on their issues didn’t bite, who would? National would know, but she still didn’t want to involve them.

  Another three weeks later, when he texted Sorry for the delay— I had to research the claim—do you still want to talk? she was taken completely by surprise. Finally. Hopefully. Maybe.

  She met him at Stomping Grounds. The fact that he knew it was a point in his favor, as was the fact he didn’t have a Pilot. When she arrived, he was already there waiting for her, his own travel mug indicating he knew the drill. Normally she’d suggest walking out to prevent eavesdropping; when he didn’t suggest it, she didn’t, either, for fear it might sound paranoid. She was paranoid, and for good reason, but this probably wasn’t the person to let see that side of her.

  “So,” Toledo said without preamble. “This is legit. Nobody else knows about it?”

  “I haven’t told anyone else.”

  “And your source hasn’t given it to anyone else?”

  The “your source” part felt like a spy movie to Sophie. She didn’t know for sure, but it seemed unlikely. “No.”

  “Can you tell me your source’s name?”

  She shook her head.

  The journalist sighed. “I understand. I was able to verify that the study referenced exists, and that both the sender and the receiver of this e-mail work at BNL, so the source isn’t as important, but it would still be great to talk to them. Would they be willing to talk to me as an anonymous source?”

  “I don’t think so. They didn’t give it to me directly—just slipped it under the door.” That was all true, even if it suggested the d
oor in question was the meeting space, not her bedroom.

  “Okay. Is there anyone else who could speak to the human interest side of this? Someone in your group, maybe?”

  She thought of Tommie, the woman who’d been paid to have her Pilot removed, though she’d probably signed something saying she couldn’t disclose. “I’ll ask.”

  “Thanks. Now, I’ll be calling your national office for a quote—”

  “Don’t!” said Sophie, then, less vehemently, “Please.”

  He looked surprised. “Why?”

  “They’ll make it into some national thing.”

  “It is a national thing. The letter came from here because BNL headquarters is here, but the study has national implications.”

  “I know, but is there any way you can hold off on that?” It was hard to explain that she didn’t want to lose control. She was being silly. This was a big deal; it wasn’t about her. “Until nearly the end. Do the rest, then call them?”

  “I can’t make any promises. If I need something they’ll know, I’ll need to ask them, but the story is mostly about BNL, so I don’t think anything they say will change the meat of it. I’ll try to wait as long as I can. I get wanting a story to be yours as long as you can hold on to it.”

  He understood.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  JULIE

  The wrongness in David had grown, magnified; Julie felt a strange electric charge whenever she saw him. He had lost weight, and there were dark circles under his eyes, even worse than when he’d first come home from his deployment and struggled to sleep. Those were nights she’d stayed up with him, and they’d drunk coffee despite the late hour and talked about nothing in particular while she’d waited for him to bring up the things that actually kept him awake.