We Are Satellites

by Sarah Pinsker

  “I still don’t understand where he went that he wouldn’t be able to talk with us,” Val said.

  Sophie heard water running, spit, rinse, Julie’s voice. “He said we could call, but he might not respond.”

  “You know that’s weird, right? We’ve always been able to talk, other than the secret deployments.”

  “I know. I don’t understand, either . . .”

  Sophie waited until they left their bathroom to brush her own teeth. They’d never realized about the vent, and as long as she didn’t make any noise when they were in their bathroom, her secret was safe. And now she had new information.

  * * *

  • • •

  She almost missed it. If she hadn’t been on the message board at the exact moment the comment came through, then vanished, she would have gone on oblivious.

  After listening to her mothers argue through the air vent, she’d thought about David. Thought about the fact that he’d turned his Pilot off but left the light, which nagged at her in a way she still couldn’t understand, so she asked again if anyone else had experience with that.

  Sixteen other people were active on the chat at that moment, according to the icon in the corner. The bottom of the screen said Greggg is typing, then Greggg, Gabe, and GNM are typing appeared. First, an annoying person who went by Greggg, who always had to be first to comment, but rarely had anything useful to say. He meant well, but as usual, his comment wasn’t worth reading. Then Gabe, who said something typically Gabe-smart and insightful. Only GNM is typing still, which meant either it was a long comment or she’d gotten distracted and walked away without completing the comment.

  GNM usually had interesting takes on whatever subject was at hand. The chats were full of younger people, so sometimes it was nice to hear from someone with more perspective. Sophie waited to see what she had to say.

  I’ve been thinking since the last time you mentioned it, GNM wrote. If you can deactivate a Pilot without turning off the light, what does the light mean?

  That was Sophie’s question, too.

  Another pause, then:

  It means the brand is winning. Why would you turn it off if you had the option to leave it? I mean, I don’t believe in the things, but if it’s working fine there’s no reason to go and have surgery again a third time, I would think. Why wouldn’t you do it the second time while you were in there already, unless you wanted to keep the benefits but lose the noise?

  Sophie froze.

  The last sentence blinked from existence, then returned without the last four words.

  But lose the noise. Was there anyone who talked about noise other than their family? And that specific scenario with David’s descriptor? Grandma was not who she said she was.

  Sophie had moderator access to everyone’s profiles. She’d been thinking of her as “Grandma” for so long, as she’d insisted they call her, that she’d forgotten “GNM” actually stood for “Godnotmod.” When she’d originally applied for the group, she’d said she was a religious woman who didn’t believe in altering the body that God had given. Since then, she’d posted over two thousand times. As a precaution, the group didn’t archive posts older than a week, so Sophie couldn’t look back to see if she’d said anything similar before, or anything out of character.

  The e-mail address didn’t give anything away, either. They insisted on real names for application purposes. Sophie couldn’t remember whether she’d been the one to approve the application, or someone else had. The name was generic: Deb Harry, from New York. Sophie remembered she’d been the one to approve the application, and that it had been irritating to verify her information, since there was an old singer by the same name. Had she given up trying? She couldn’t remember.

  If this was one of her family members, it was obvious who. Val wouldn’t have bothered hiding, since Sophie had made it clear she was welcome in anti-Pilot spaces. David wouldn’t have been able to post during some of the time GNM had been posting, since most sites were restricted from the bases where he’d been deployed.

  Which left Julie. Julie, who always had two or three devices open in front of her. Julie, who never had trouble justifying anything she did. Julie, who would have convinced herself it was perfectly reasonable to spy on her daughter in the name of making sure she was safe, or something like that. Julie, who probably thought she was helping.

  Julie, who had helped. Sophie couldn’t deny that Grandma had made hundreds of useful comments. There were a dozen bores like Greggg who liked the sounds of their own voices, liked being first to comment, liked thinking they were useful without ever doing anything remotely useful. Grandma had been in a different category, with the people who weighed their words.

  Except she was a spy. No, not a spy, because if Julie was here, she wasn’t reporting to anyone. It still didn’t mean she had any right to be here, any more than someone without a kid should go to a parent group and pretend they had one, or someone without a medical condition or a connection to it should fake it in a support group. This was a group for people who believed Pilots were bad for society, and no matter how many good ideas Grandma-or-Julie had, she didn’t belong.

  Sophie contemplated the flaws in their system. If Julie could convince them she was one of them, were there other people who’d snuck through? She thought about what had been said here over the years. They generally treated this as a public space, one where anyone could be listening, where anything could be copied to the public. Anything secret was discussed in person. People—including herself—sometimes said stuff that was maybe too private, might be considered oversharing, but she didn’t think there was anything useful for a spy. Just public organizing. Public organizing with at least one traitor in their midst.

  The more she considered it, the angrier she got. It was a lie, sure, but more than that, it was a violation. Her finger hovered over the “deactivate account” button, but then she thought better of it. Don’t let on that she’d noticed. Hold on to this for the right moment. Gather all her med bottles, not just a few days’ worth, and walk out the door, because her home, where she was supposed to trust people and be trusted, was suddenly a place she couldn’t stand to be. Better to go back to the meeting space, where she was surrounded by friends and strangers who thought she was smart and capable, not a kid to keep tabs on.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  VAL

  Val had long since gotten used to one kid or the other not coming home for the night, though she never liked it. She knew sooner or later someone would move out for good, but while they still lived there, she preferred knowing where they were at night.

  What she wasn’t used to was neither of them coming home, and not knowing where either was, for multiple days in a row. Stranger still, when she asked Julie, when she’d pointed out that Sophie usually took only a few days’ worth of her meds with her, but had taken the whole bottles this time, Julie shrugged and said their kids were adults with busy lives, and it wasn’t their place to keep tabs. Of course it was, to some degree. She didn’t need an exact location for them: she’d settle for a city, a state, a state of being.

  In the fifth week of shrugs, the fifth week of no David, the fifth week of no answers to her phone calls, the fourth day of no Sophie, she left school after practice and drove to Sophie’s headquarters. She remembered the time Sophie had allowed her to come to a meeting and how carefully the kid had chosen their route, a curated experience. She had found it sweet, the assumption that she didn’t know her way around the city, that she wouldn’t recognize she was being led on a circuitous route to avoid the worst neighborhoods in between their home and the meeting space. She’d let Sophie have that deception.

  Now she drove the most direct route. The neighborhoods in between were poor and besieged with drugs and dealers. Pilots hadn’t changed that. The dealers had them, their lookouts had them, the people on the streets had them to keep themselves aware. A system in
dire need of change, but the wrong change had arrived. The wrong changes were everywhere.

  Val’s thought had been to sit through the meeting, but when she opened the door she suddenly felt intrusive. She had every right to go inside, but invading her daughter’s space for information, not solidarity, felt wrong.

  She closed the door without entering. Instead, she leaned against the Formstone wall and waited. It was a nice evening, neither cold nor hot. The basketball court on the corner was full of laughing teenage girls. Two Black men sat on the stoop of a house directly opposite, each with a can of beer in hand. One raised his and pointed to it, a question in his raised eyebrows. She was about to shake her head no, then reconsidered. If she was waiting out here until people started departing, she might as well have company.

  As she crossed, the guy who’d offered stepped into the row house, then returned with a second can, ice-cold. She took it and clinked hers to his, then the other man’s.

  “They never cause trouble, but a lot of people go in and out of that building night and day,” the one who’d brought her the beer said. He was older than the other, but there was a family resemblance. “What’ve they got going on?”

  “It’s the headquarters for the local anti-Pilot organization. They’ve got meetings and stuff.”

  “No kidding? You should go, Will.” The older man, who had a Pilot, nudged the younger.

  Will frowned. “I’m not anti-Pilot. I’m anti paying for one. They’re only subsidized for teenagers.”

  Val regretted having said anything; she felt like she’d stumbled into the same private conversation that her own family had argued out so many times. If they kept going, she’d make her excuses and march into the building.

  The father turned back to her. “What about you? I notice you didn’t walk in there yourself.”

  “My daughter’s in there. I didn’t want to intrude.”

  “Isn’t that what parents are for?” Will’s tone was teasing.

  “Sometimes, I guess.” She took another sip. “She’s mad about something, and I don’t want to give her more reasons to be mad. I don’t think I’m on the bad list yet.”

  “Fair, fair,” said the older man. “What about you? Anti-Pilot, anti-paying, or something else?”

  “Anti-Pilot.” She surprised herself with her lack of hesitation. Had she ever said that out loud before? She usually said she was in solidarity with Sophie or she wanted to wait for more information, but the truth was she already had her own answer. It felt good to say it.

  Will looked at her. “Do you work?”

  “I’m a teacher.”

  “And they haven’t found some excuse to phase you out yet? Are there a lot of teachers without in your school?”

  “Three,” she admitted. “They haven’t said anything yet about phasing us out.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They drank in silence. When Will went inside for another round, Val declined. She nursed the first beer knowing she’d be driving home soon enough, hopefully with Sophie, not that she would count that particular chick until safely back in the coop.

  The door opened across the street, and a single person walked out. A minute later, three more.

  “That’s my cue,” Val said. “Thanks for the beer and the company.”

  “A pleasure,” the father said.

  She waited for another few people to exit, then marched herself through the door.

  Sophie and her friend Gabe both looked over when Val entered. Gabe raised a hand in greeting. Sophie looked surprised, but not entirely hostile. Whatever had her staying away from home wasn’t Val’s fault, then. It gave Val the courage to approach, which was hilarious on some deep level, that she was this nervous to approach her own daughter.

  “Did she send you?”

  Definitely mad about something. Luckily, Val could profess ignorance in complete honesty. “Julie? Why would she send me?”

  Sophie sighed, the exact sigh she had always sighed. She would make that sound at eighty, Val was sure.

  “Look, Soph, what if I buy you dinner somewhere and you tell me what’s wrong? I’m honestly here to listen.”

  “We’ve got chili here.”

  “Okay, then. I skipped dinner to come talk to you, and I’m hungry. Can I eat some chili while you tell me what’s wrong?”

  Sophie considered, then nodded toward the kitchen. “Go help yourself. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  That wasn’t the worst response.

  In the back, a mismatched stack of ceramic bowls and an astonishing array of spoons stood next to an enormous slow cooker. When Val lifted the slow cooker’s lid, she was hit with the rich scent of beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, chili, cumin, something else. She ladled a portion into a red bowl and grabbed a spoon with Snoopy etched into the handle.

  It looked like the meals she herself was best at making: hearty, healthy, throw everything in a pot and leave it alone, but whatever that extra ingredient was, it tipped it past anything she usually made in the taste department.

  She half expected her daughter to head out the door with the crowd and leave her sitting here alone, but Sophie joined her after a couple of minutes.

  “Who does the cooking? This is delicious.”

  Sophie smiled. She had bags under her eyes. “It’s pretty good, isn’t it? It was my turn tonight.”

  Val tried to hide her surprise. “You? Really? But—”

  “But it’s good?”

  “I was going to say But you don’t cook. It’s terrific. Since when do you cook?”

  “Just because I don’t, doesn’t mean I can’t.” Sophie lifted her chin, and Val resisted the urge to throw her arms around the girl.

  “Well, like I said, this is delicious. Maybe you can improve the quality of meals we eat at home. There’s something special in here. It’s more complex than the chili I make.”

  “Cocoa powder. And red wine vinegar. I don’t think you put either of those in your chili, do you? But I’m not going back there. She’s a liar.”

  Val would never in a million years have thought to add cocoa powder to chili. She filed the information away and focused on the more important thing. “What’s she lying about?”

  “She’s been spying on me.”

  “Spying?” This was the kind of conversation where she’d keep repeating key words and hope they would eventually lead to a place of understanding.

  “Online. For ages. She created a whole fake persona and she’s been hiding in my groups spying on me and not telling me it was her.”

  Val thought of all the nights sitting on the couch with Julie watching TV and puttering online at the same time. Sophie was obviously mad about an intrusion, as she had a right to be, but Val also bristled at the idea there had been nights where she wondered where Sophie was, and Julie had known and not said. Nights where she’d said “Whatcha doing?” and Julie had responded “Work” or “Shopping.”

  Sophie stared at her, clearly waiting for her to defend Julie. If Sophie was right, Julie’s actions weren’t defensible.

  “Oh,” she said.

  A weak response if ever there was one, and Sophie obviously agreed. “Of course you’ll side with her. You probably knew.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m processing. That’s a horrible thing to do to you, but I also can’t help thinking she must have had a reason.”

  “Her reason was spying. Infiltrating. She was pretending to be one of us the whole time. And what really sucked is, I liked her. She had good ideas. I thought she was on our side.”

  “Oh, honey. That’s awful. I can’t even guess what she was thinking. You’re sure about all this?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “Did you confront her about it?”

  “She’d just say she was trying to help. She wouldn’t have the decency to be sorry.”
<
br />   Val imagined that was true. “She probably does think she’s being helpful.”

  “Don’t excuse her, please. It wasn’t right to deceive me, no matter what the reason.”

  Val nodded.

  Sophie continued. “I know you love her, and I love her, too, but she’s lying about a bunch of stuff, and I’m sick of it. She’s a hypocrite. She’s hiding other stuff, too.”

  An icy heat flooded Val’s veins. “Hiding what?”

  “You should ask her.” Sophie looked away. “I’m staying here until it all gets sorted out.”

  “What else is she hiding, Soph? I don’t like being in the dark.”

  “Tell her that.”

  “I will, but can you give me a hint? Please.”

  “When was the last time you saw David? Or spoke with him?”

  Val had known that was the other thing. It was so obvious. All the times she’d said it was strange he wasn’t calling home, where had he been? Of course Julie knew something, or she would have been as concerned as Val. Val was naive, oblivious, had missed something everyone else knew. She felt like a fool.

  “Okay,” she said. “Stay here and do your thing, because you’re obviously good at it, and you don’t need anybody checking on you. I love you. I’ll only ask you not to shut me out just because you’re mad at her. I’ll talk to her. I’ll figure it out.”

  She was afraid Sophie would make her choose, and nearly broke when the girl leaned over and gave her a hug. “Okay, but you really do need to talk to her. For all of us.”

  Sophie took the empty chili bowl from Val and walked it to the kitchen. When she emerged, she went over to where the remaining people had gathered, without looking back over. Val understood she’d been dismissed.

  She drove home numb, angry, sad, angry, confused, working out one thing after another that she wanted to say to Julie, to ask Julie, to demand answers about. They were supposed to be a team.

  All the lights were off at the house except in the kitchen. Julie was drinking coffee with her tablet on the table in front of her. “Hey! I was wondering where you were!”