Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  “Why, though?” Arden asked.

  “Didn’t know you wanted to have that kind of night,” Cathie said. “I mean, we haven’t partied like that since our twenties.”

  “Oh, no, no,” Arden insisted immediately. The others had come under the impression that Arden meant to get wild, downing shots of formula and snorting crushed pills meant for other purposes. “No. Not like that.”

  “Is there another reason you brought your pet then?” Zira asked.

  “Cause I fucking like him,” Arden snapped.

  She scowled. “Heard he supplies a lot of people with certain things is all.”

  “Be nice to him.”

  “Ardi, of course we’ll be nice to him,” Cathie promised. “We’re…”

  “You look good,” Cole interrupted. “I like this jacket.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “It works on you,” Cole assured. “You know I’d tell you if it didn’t.”

  Arden did know. He ran his fingers through the faux fur. “It’s atrocious.”

  “Deeply,” Mace agreed.

  They all gave Oggie fake smiles when he came back.

  He handed Arden a drink. “I had to tell off Garen for copying my drink. Trying to make High Water with blueberry syrup, the idiot. If he’s going to do it wrong, he ought to at least call it something else. Anyway, I got you a vodka soda…” He trailed off. “That okay, shug?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Good to start with, nothing to throw off your palate. They are making pitchers of pink ivies tonight, and Garen’s decent at making those—”

  “I thought it was your night off.”

  “You’re the one who brought me to work.”

  Arden nudged him. “You going to come dance with me later?”

  “Can you dance without being shitfaced?”

  “I actually can. But will I? Nope.”

  Oggie grinned.

  They stood around and chatted with the others, sipping their drinks and waiting to get drunk.

  At least, Arden was waiting to get drunk. The others seemed happy enough to talk.

  Oggie snuggled up under Arden’s arm. He put on a good act, the perfect pet, flattering and flirty.

  Arden didn’t know how much was fake. He got very drunk. Not too drunk, not drunk enough to be a mess, but enough to have fun. Enough to pull a protesting Oggie out onto the dancefloor.

  “Shug, really, I’m not that coordinated—”

  “Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s just…jumping around.”

  “Sugar—”

  Arden grabbed both his hands and dropped to his knees. “Ogden Theodore Nielsen, will you please dance with me?”

  “Oh, fucking, Arden, get up, get up, people are looking.”

  “Will you dance with me?”

  “Yes. Get up!”

  Arden popped up to his feet and dragged him to the center of the floor. He twirled them together.

  After a few songs, he told Oggie, “You’re not a bad dancer!”

  “I know. I didn’t want to dance.”

  Arden giggled. “Why not?”

  “People are looking at us,” he pointed out as a non-answer.

  “They’re supposed to be.” He threw his arms around Oggie and hung off him for a few songs.

  They came back to a cluster of Arden’s friends whispering together. Oggie had mentioned getting more drinks and now that they had them, he said, “Sugar, can we sit for a little bit?”

  “I, uh. You sit, I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”

  Oggie nodded.

  Arden headed towards the bathroom.

  Mace followed right on his heels.

  “I thought you didn’t like boys,” Arden teased.

  “Ardi, I wanted to talk for a second.”

  “Okay…” He lingered outside of the bathroom. “What about?”

  “We’re worried about you.”

  “We?”

  “Your fucking friends, Arden. Don’t be an asshole for once in your life,” Mace snapped.

  Arden raised his eyebrows. As a rule, people didn’t talk to him like that.

  “Whatever’s going on between you and Nielsen, keep it in the bedroom.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You were in such a good place, Ardi, and we, you know, we all hear about the formulas, all the things you buy him. Cole says you fell asleep in Council the other day.”

  “It was boring,” Arden sulked.

  He’d stayed up later than he should have a few nights in a row, yes, but it had been a tedious meeting.

  “We’re worried about you.”

  Arden fidgeted. He turned and went into the bathroom because he really did have to pee.

  He hated this.

  He headed back to find everyone sitting around the table. He hung back and watched them staring at Oggie while he fidgeted with the swizzle stick in his drink. His lips moved every so often. He looked at his drink more than he looked at them. He had a flat smile plastered on his face.

  They were asking him questions.

  He went over and nuzzled against Oggie’s throat. “Let’s go home.”

  Oggie kissed his shoulder. “Anything you like, sugar.”

  Arden held tight to his hand while they walked away without much of a farewell. He got the feeling that if he said anything, Oggie would cry, or maybe scream.

  In their rooms, while Oggie undressed, Arden went into his bathroom and drew a bath.

  “What are you doing?” Oggie called from the closet.

  “You’ll feel better.”

  Oggie came to stand in the doorway of his bathroom, undressed. “Who says I need to feel better?”

  “That look on your face.”

  “You don’t ever stop to think I fake feeling bad just the same as I fake being your pet?”

  “No.” Arden sat beside the tub. He tested the water. “Should I?”

  “You don’t ever worry that I’m not your friend?”

  “I worry everyone isn’t my friend. I joined the handball team so people would have to spend time with me. Before that, I spent most of my childhood pitching a fit anytime my mothers tried to make me do something social.”

  Oggie came over to stand next to Arden.

  Close.

  Really close.

  Arden avoided looking up to get too much of an eyeful.

  Oggie crouched. He tested the water. He sighed.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Sometimes I feel like someone peeled off my skin and the world is made out of sandpaper.”

  Arden kind of understood that.

  They stayed on the floor like that, the water churning and steaming, waiting for the bath to fill.

  When it did, Arden turned off the faucet. “I’ll go if you want to be alone.”

  “I don’t know what I want.” He sounded exhausted. He climbed into the tub. His skin went ruddy with the heat.

  Arden had made it too hot. He reached for the cold tap.

  “Don’t.” Oggie sunk up to his shoulders in too hot water.

  “Are you okay, Oggie?”

  Oggie looked at him.

  “I mean, my friends—”

  “Your friends are worried about you. People believe what we’ve told them to believe. Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “It can’t be easy, people thinking you’re the bad guy.”

  Oggie sighed. “Go get some sleep, sugar.”

  In the morning, he couldn’t find Oggie. He hadn’t taken his things, so Arden didn’t worry. Sometimes Oggie went out. Part of Arden doubted he’d even gone to bed last night.

  Rhys came to get him for work, and he spent all day away from his rooms.

  Oggie hadn’t come back by dinner time.

  Maybe he’d come home and then gone back out. He did that sometimes. A few times he hadn’t come home for a couple days in a row. Once or twice, he’d brought someone back, late at night.

  He’d tried to keep it secret, whispering at the other person to be quiet,
but Arden could always hear them.

  These clandestine visitors never stayed long. Arden never asked about them, either.

  He went down to Crystal to check if Oggie had gone to work.

  Mara said, “He traded shifts last minute.”

  “Oh. Well. If he comes by, tell him I was looking for him.”

  “You lose him?” she asked disdainfully.

  “I didn’t lose him, he’s an adult.”

  “Mm.”

  He rolled his eyes at her and left.

  He decided to wait up for Oggie to come home and fell asleep on the couch.

  He woke as soon as the door opened. He rubbed his eyes and pushed himself up. “Og?”

  Oggie yelped. “Sugar!”

  “Sorry. I.”

  “Were you waiting up for me?” He turned on a dim light.

  “I. You know, I didn’t know where you were.”

  “Couldn’t have looked that hard. I wasn’t anywhere a safety officer wouldn’t have found me.”

  “I didn’t want to send an officer after you. It felt a little drastic. And I, uh, I know you get up to things you’d prefer to keep private.”

  Oggie laughed shakily. He came to sit beside Arden. He looked haggard and his clothes didn’t sit correctly on his frame. The flush in his cheek and shake in his hands made Arden think he’d been arguing or even fighting. “I.” He cleared his throat. “I haven’t been honest with you.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Stop flattering me, I’m trying to be serious,” Oggie attempted to joke. He took a deep breath. His words didn’t come out quite right, quick and slurred. “Morris, uh. He’s paying me to do more than just spy on you. He, uh. He’s.” He pressed a hand to his mouth. “I got into trouble a while back, at the med center, like I told you. Morris was the one who got those charges dropped. And, I mean, they were serious charges and if, if he wanted, I’d be back in lockup in an instant.”

  “Oh.”

  “And so, he. Arden, he knows. He knows its fake. That we’re not sleeping together, that you haven’t relapsed. But, uh, the thing is, he wanted me to keep it going, seeing how deep you’d dig yourself, how far you’d let your reputation slip and then…” He spoke all in one confused rush.

  Arden drew a blanket around his shoulders. He felt cold but knew it had nothing to do with the temperature. “Then what?”

  Oggie reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small medicine bottle, clear glass with a sealed lid, the kind that had to be pierced by a needle. It had a label on it, the print too small for Arden to make out in the dim light.

  They stared at the bottle.

  “What is it?”

  “Uh, I can’t pronounce what it’s really called, methy-something-di-fenty-something-or-other. Uh, in the Quarters we call it wish, cause, uh, you wish you’d never touched it. It’s a heavy-duty pain killer.”

  “Knockout,” Arden supplied. “At least, that’s what we called it when I was in school. Kids probably have a different name for it now. Is that what you were stealing?”

  Oggie nodded. “Stealing, cutting, and selling for a pretty good profit. But, uh. I didn’t steal this one. Morris gave it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “You are a drug addict, Arden.”

  Someone might imply he had a problem with formulas, but no one would dare to call the Autarch an addict to his face. Peers usually looked horrified if he applied the term to himself.

  No one called formulas drugs, but that’s all they were.

  Wish, or knockout, or whatever it was, killed people with stunning regularity when not administered in the correct dosage. Even at his very worst, Arden hadn’t touched the stuff. The amount Oggie had in that bottle could do in hundreds of adults.

  Probably twice as many babies, Arden thought dully.

  He licked his lips.

  The dim light of the reading lamp made it glow golden and peachy in Oggie’s hand.

  In a flash, Oggie put the bottle on the table. He yanked his hand back like it had started to burn. “So, I haven’t been honest with you.”

  “Are you…Are you going to try to kill me?” Arden asked.

  “Morris wants me to. It makes sense. Dealer deals drugs. Addict takes drugs. The dose is super stupid easy to mess up. Bye-bye, addict. Hello, new Autarch, hello…” Oggie sighed. “Hello, lifetime of guilt and regret and probably getting blackmailed into killing more people.”

  “This is a really bad way to kill me.”

  “I’m not going to kill you!”

  “Oh. Good. Way too suspicious.”

  “What’s so suspicious about an overdose?”

  “Nothing, but you should pick a drug I’m not allergic to.”

  Oggie glanced at the bottle.

  “Throat closes up and everything.” He’d almost died getting his wisdom teeth out. His mother had made very sure that no matter what Arden got up to, he knew which drugs had it as an ingredient.

  “Fuck. That would have terrified me.”

  “Super good thing you changed your mind.”

  “I didn’t…! Arden, I didn’t change my mind, I was never going to kill you,” Oggie insisted. “I wasn’t even going to do any of this, but, shit, have you ever been in lockup?”

  “No. Will you testify?”

  “What?”

  “Against Morris.”

  Oggie stared at him. “Is that it? I’ve…I’ve betrayed you.”

  “And now you’ve re-betrayed my uncle. Does that make you a quadruple agent? Put that on a resumé.”

  “Arden.”

  “Oggie.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No. But I would have been really mad if you’d sent me into anaphylactic shock.”

  “Why aren’t you mad at me?” Oggie demanded. “You should be fucking livid.”

  “Because I’ve met my uncle, you idiot. I broke his favorite whiskey glass once and I thought he was going to skin me alive in front of Mama.”

  All the life seemed to drain out of Oggie. He pressed his lips together.

  “Whatever Morris is holding over you, it won’t matter once we get him convicted of conspiring to murder the Autarch,” Arden assured.

  Oggie didn’t look soothed.

  “What?”

  “Why aren’t you mad?”

  Arden frowned.

  “I pretended to be your friend, I took all your presents, and lived in your rooms and…and I used you.”

  “I know.” He’d explicitly agreed to that arrangement.

  “Just like he did. You were so hurt when he did it and I…” Oggie blinked furiously. “And I can’t even hurt you at all,” he mumbled wetly.

  “What the fuck does that mean, Oggie?” Arden demanded. “Are you trying to hurt me?”

  “No! But…but you should be hurt. I pretended to be your friend. If I was your friend, this would hurt,” the younger man insisted tearily.

  Arden squeezed his eyes shut. He thought, considered the options, then asked, “So…So you want me to be upset that you double-crossed me because you were being blackmailed by a sadistic psychopath?”

  “No, I want you to…to be sad that I faked being your friend.”

  Arden wondered if Oggie was having a breakdown of some sort. “Walk me through it, Og.”

  “I faked it. I wasn’t your friend and I pretended to be and it doesn’t even matter to you.”

  “Oh.” Arden took a minute to unravel the pieces there. “So…Oggie. Are you…Are you sad that we aren’t friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “You fucking…you’re spare parts, you know that?” He grabbed Oggie by the shoulders a little more firmly than he’d meant to. “If we weren’t friends, you wouldn’t have told me any of this.”

  “I wouldn’t have killed you!” the younger man nearly shrieked.

  “No, I mean, about…” Arden sighed. “If we weren’t friends, you wouldn’t be so upset about us not being friends.”

  Sadly and into his hands, O
ggie moaned, “I’m so fucking confused.”

  Arden couldn’t explain something that didn’t make any sense. He just dragged Oggie closer to him. “You should get help, Og. Real, professional, psychological help.”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  Arden bit his tongue so he couldn’t laugh. He squeezed Oggie tight. He looked at the glass bottle on the table. “Did anyone but you and him touch that?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. And you’ll testify in court?”

  “Mhm.” Oggie squirmed closer to Arden, deep into his embrace like he was frightened of something. “I’m sorry.”

  “It really would have hurt my feelings if you’d killed me.”

  “It’s not funny.”

  “No, just, you know. I would have been thinking ‘oh, no, my dear friend has murdered me!’ as I was clawing at my throat.”

  “Arden, stop, it’s not funny.”

  “Give it a year. I bet it will be really funny in a year.”

  Oggie knotted his hands in Arden’s shirt. “I’m so sorry.”

  Arden kissed his hair. He’d always vaguely worried about Oggie, but those concerns felt a little more solid now. He’d never come home on anything before, or, at least, not this obviously. Arden knew he had to be on something right now. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know, sugar,” he murmured.

  He nodded off with his head on Arden’s lap.

  Without waking him, Arden managed to reach his tablet from the coffee table and sent a message to the chief safety officer. He asked them to bring Morris to lockup and to send someone here for the bottle.

  They could tell who’d touched it and where it had come from; likely, Morris had taken it from one of the med centers he supervised.

  The officer who arrived carefully packaged up the bottle for processing. She lingered and asked, “Uh. Chief says…” She cleared her throat.

  Arden waited.

  People didn’t seem to know where they stood with him anymore.

  “Your Eminence, the chief requests that we bring in thrall six eight—”

  “Ogden Neilson,” he suggested quietly. He stroked Oggie’s cheek.

  She quickly amended, “That we bring in Ogden Neilson to the Security Office for immediate questioning and safekeeping.”

  “Safekeeping?”

  “People who testify against Mr. Torre often change their minds,” she pointed out. “Have accidents, get sick…”

  “He’ll be safe with me,” he said, but the longer he looked at Oggie, the more he considered that he had things to do in the following days. He wouldn’t be home, and he couldn’t make Oggie come everywhere with him.