by Derek Milman
There’s silence in the car as we go over a bridge.
It’s like they took him away from me, like I lost Neil all over again.
Agent Schwartz puts his arm over the seat and flashes me one of his signature sympathetic smiles—but it’s made of Styrofoam. He looks totally drained; guilt and loss painted all vivid on his face like he’s finally realizing what he was complicit in, the actual consequences—in the flesh—of one of his trade-offs.
Who the hell knows what his story is? I’ve heard these guys spend years tracking terrorist cells and it all leads up to one moment.
“I asked Neil in my head what I should do about Tom—if I should e-mail him—and he told me not to. But I did anyway. I didn’t listen.”
“That’s not on you,” says Schwartz. “You didn’t cause Tom to…” He trails off.
“Don’t tell me I didn’t cause something. Because you don’t know.”
Two years. Two years I was e-mailing him.
Tom and I started e-mailing each other when we were still together, for scheduling purposes mainly—no gurgly swaths of romantic poetry, just logistical shit—when he would have the house to himself, when my parents would be gone, that kind of thing. Basically when we could have sex.
I bet Digital Dust saw those e-mails.
What a find. What a score.
After Tom told me we were done, I stopped. I didn’t try to contact him again. Like I said.
Not for a while, anyway.
When I got to Witloff, things seemed to stabilize for me.
At least at first.
I was in a new environment. I joined the swim team. I made friends: Jackson, Leo—there were some great kids there, and I could talk to them. I really could. But I was a little lonely, too—far from home, and on my own for the first time. Sometimes being surrounded by lots of people made me feel even lonelier.
But I felt like I had grown up a bit, too, that I was kind of a new person—no parents hovering, or Neil’s empty room, his empty chair at the dinner table staring me right in the face every night.
There was a period of adjustment where I started sliding into these sticky funks. Being away provided a certain distance, a distance I didn’t previously have. And Neil crept into my thoughts a lot during those times. So did Tom. And Tom was someone I could still talk to—sort of, anyway.
I just missed him. I was still in love with him. Which sucked.
So I started e-mailing him.
Ugh. I know.
Just to tell him how I was, what my life at Witloff was like, not that he really cared. I didn’t have any illusions like that, but I’d e-mail him anyway. And yeah, he’d never respond, but I knew he was reading my e-mails. I felt it. It was like he was reading a diary I was writing just for him. He became my silent audience in a dim theater at night, all creaky and ghost-lit. But of course Digital Dust was watching, too.
I met this kid at Witloff named Sebastian. He had been through some real shit, too. No one knew what exactly, but this kid was on so many SSRIs and other meds that one of his eyelids would involuntarily droop down whenever he’d talk to you. He changed his Instagram handle to ZombieMud and for a while would post only photos of dead birds.
I didn’t want to become like Sebastian.
As I began to reflect more and more on Tom, and what we had together, and how it ended, I began to feel a raw, fresh bitterness rising up. And I wanted to address that with him because it wasn’t going away.
I should have talked to a professional, maybe even gone on meds myself—at least for a while—but my experience with therapists back home, after Neil died, hadn’t yielded much; probably because it was family therapy, which wasn’t what I needed at the time. I didn’t want to examine my grief when I was just numb, so I felt the whole thing was bullshit.
That’s when these thoughts started creeping into my mind that Tom had stolen something from me. At first it was vague; my innocence, something flowery and amorphous like that. But the more I thought about it, and him, the more I realized I was never going to have another first: he had been my first. And sure, he could move on and forget about me, but I was having a hard time doing the same.
Tom took something from me. And I wanted him to take some responsibility for that because all he did was turn his back on me at the end—to protect a family that he still had, when mine was shattered into a million pieces.
He never once wrote back. I accepted that at first, but then it would just make me angry because, at a certain point, I didn’t even know if he was reading my e-mails anymore. I stopped feeling him on the other side. I started picturing him just deleting them the moment my name flashed across his screen. Like he had deleted me.
Eventually, I got sick of him never responding. So I did something kind of dark.
I told him he had left scars on me, and I couldn’t take it anymore and was thinking about killing myself. It wasn’t true. If it were true I would have turned to Jackson or Leo, because they knew about my past and cared about me, and I could always talk to them.
I just wanted to see if he would respond, if he would say something. I wanted to get a rise out of him. I didn’t know about his personal travails, whatever was happening with his marriage, and it was definitely a messed-up thing to do. Anyway, soon after I wrote him that e-mail (probably Digital Dust’s personal favorite), he must have… done what he did… because I heard about it from my mom only a few weeks later.
And then I knew he had probably read that e-mail, had probably been reading all the e-mails I sent to him. He probably loved me, had maybe never stopped loving me. Or at least that’s what I’d like to believe. It’s what I tell myself. He just had to let me go and was hoping I would do the same. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
And I had to grieve him in private, which was very different than grieving Neil in public; so everything began to filter into my subconscious, and the dreams began, the tornado ones, but also the ones of my house on fire, lots of that kind of thing.
What I realized back at the hotel, with all the feds buzzing around me like worker bees, is that I have to finally escape the tornado. I have to get out of the burning house. And maybe I can take Shiloh with me.
I can’t get that fool out of my head.
What if he really did risk everything to try to save me? That means something.
Whether or not I’m more of a liability to the government or to the Swans—well, I don’t know if that even matters anymore. I’m not a totally innocent bystander. The feds did some pretty unscrupulous shit getting me involved in all this, but I made mistakes, too. We all walk into things, fate blowing us cruel little kisses.
Aunt Meredith and her Death Rays. Drew and the avalanche…
Whether or not Schwartz has been telling me the whole truth, or trying to manipulate me this whole time—which, let’s face it, he has—I do know Scotty can get creative. And I believe the Swans may have set another, deadlier plan in motion already—especially if Shiloh was feeding the feds that specific intel.
What if something horrible happens that I could have prevented? To little kids? How many goddamn tragedies do I have to leave my imprint on?
I guess I want to prove to everyone, and myself, that Digital Dust was wrong.
So I let them implant that microchip in my back molar. And seal it with pasty goo, and do what they could to make it look like it’s a cavity filling.
And I’m going to let them think I’m just going to make a handoff.
The city flattens out and the sky opens up as we head through an industrial section of Brooklyn near the East River, neon reflections drowned in its depths, the windows of warehouses aglow with secrets, rooftop parties hopping in their own strobing hubs, water towers like stoic shadow puppets against the sheet of swirling chemical-blue sky. Tons of hollow, skeletal buildings in the midst of construction sprout from everywhere, dotted with work lights, like something gutted and awaiting consumption.
I’ve lost track of the time. My phone, never fully charg
ed, is dead again.
The car pulls to a stop on a quiet street. The scrolling LED sign by the entrance to a school announces mundane stuff like class schedules and special events. Its lights dance across the wet windshield, reminding me I’m no longer an ordinary kid—and may never be again. The rain has slowed to a pesky misting. The windshield wipers squeak. The noise gets under my skin. “Where are we?”
“Near McCarren Park,” says Schwartz.
“What time is it?”
“It’s nearly one a.m.,” he replies, then turns away. “Go ahead,” he says into his headset. “They want to test your transmitter, Aidan. Say something, please.”
“Blah blah suck my dick and go to hell.”
After a beat: “All right, we’re good,” says Schwartz, giving me a thumbs-up. “Remember, Aidan, all you have to do is hand over the flash drive. Don’t talk to us directly. Just talk to them. We’ll hear whatever you both say. We’re gonna be unseen, but surrounding you at all times. We want them to think you’re alone, so you may not see us. Act natural.”
I don’t even know what acting natural means anymore. “Where’s the drop?”
“Walk in that direction—” he points to my right in this blasé sort of way like I asked him where I could buy a candy bar—“and when you hit the park, find the tennis courts. Only one of them should be occupied.”
“Okay.”
“Yes?” says Schwartz into his earpiece. “Okay, Aidan, just give us a minute… we want to sync our operation here.”
Five minutes go by. I feel like I’m melting into the leather seat, liquefying with anxiety and impatience. And then they tell me to open the door and go.
I step off the street and slosh through a patch of grass. The rain has pretty much petered out by now.
I cross a quiet, leafy street with lines of parked cars. There are benches and picnic tables off the sidewalk. I enter an expansive court through an open gate, but it’s the wrong one—this has basketball hoops, a batting cage. It’s untended. The asphalt is cracked; grass pokes through the cracks in a messy swirl, like cinnamon on a breakfast bun. Brand new high-rise buildings loom in the near distance, proud and incandescent.
I hear the sound of a tennis ball being hit, sneakered feet on a wet court. The noise is at once entirely ordinary and spooky in its ordinariness. I go back out and circle around. The tennis courts are right next to where I was.
Behind another fence are seven blue refurbished hard courts, in the shadow of an automotive school with caged windows on its lower floors. The courts are empty except for the one in the middle. Everything is lit by the sherbet-colored exterior sodium lights of the school.
Two dudes in tennis whites are playing a match—in the middle of the night.
Through the holes in the fence, I see who they are.
The Hardy Boys.
I stop in my tracks and exhale a thin whistle of air through my teeth. I pull up my hood. “They’re here, two of them,” I say, under my breath.
I open the gate, which clanks, and walk onto the courts. I splash through a fresh puddle. The Hardy Boys stop when they see me and sling their rackets over their shoulders. The abandoned tennis ball bounces once, twice, and rolls away.
There’s something intensely ghostly about this whole scene. The two HBs stand stock-still, illuminated in the mist. I move forward. As I do, they move to the opposite end of the court from where I’m approaching, like we’re here to play a game of Canadian doubles. Anything could happen right now. Anything.
Slowly I approach the net, my heart pounding, telling myself: There are snipers everywhere, I’m wearing Kevlar.
HB Frank approaches from his side, like we’re about to have a coin toss. We meet at the net. He sticks his hand out. I put the flash drive into his upturned palm.
“There you go,” I say. “The source code.”
HB Joe approaches the net as well. They’re both grinning at me, prepster jack-o’-lanterns, their teeth shining, probably not from moonlight, but I want to believe it’s moonlight.
“Are you one of us?” says HB Joe.
“I am.”
They stare at me, as if assessing. Both of them seem vaguely amused, like two sadistic kids watching a small animal being tortured.
“Is Shiloh okay?” I ask.
More grinning. “He wants to see you,” says HB Frank.
“He” could mean Shiloh, Scotty, Kanye, anybody.
“So you’ve figured out who you really are,” says HB Frank.
“I have.”
“Well?”
This existential chitchat with two terrorists on a tennis court.
“I’m Aidan Jamison. I am sympathetic to your cause. Take me with you.”
The feds are listening. This is the point where they could swoop in—if they wanted to. This is the turning point.
But I know they won’t. I knew they wouldn’t.
Slowly I walk past the net to the other side of the court.
Cross the line, Scotty said.
The HBs acknowledge my compliance by turning their backs and walking off the court. I follow them through another gate, off the tennis courts and to their Tahoe, parked on the street outside. HB Joe holds the rear door open for me.
This is what I had hoped—that they wouldn’t frisk me this time.
I’m one of them now, after all.
I pause for one final second, biting my lip. The feds can see I’m getting taken. But there’s no sniper fire. No Schwartz coming to the rescue. No Hernandez, or the woman with the ponytail, or any of the other feds hurtling out of the darkness.
No gay son, either, probably.
I get in the car. The Hardy Boys take the two front seats. They change out of their tennis whites into sleek black athletic gear. Both of them are well muscled, and both of them have those swan tattoos on their forearms—the one Benoît had, with those same numbers. It is a cult. A murderous one.
Hardy Boy Joe turns on the ignition. He lowers his window and throws the flash drive I just gave them out onto the street. I hear it land on the sidewalk with a weak little clatter.
But it’s the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.
Any question whether they know about the feds’ little operation—about me, Shiloh, the fake malware—is instantly answered.
It’s me they really want. Just like Scotty said.
Scotty got taken in by Digital Dust, whether he realizes it or not. It snared both of us. He sees me, somehow, as the compatriot he’s always longed for.
So I’ll give him that.
We screech away, zip through the night, over yet another bridge, the city rising in the distance, on my left, and then we’re on a very familiar highway.
No one says another word.
CHAPTER 15
An Army of Lovers
Welcome to Merrick Gables.
I gulp a little when I see the sign again. Yeah, great, thanks.
The house is dark as we pull into the driveway. My car door is opened and I climb out.
I follow the Hardy Boys through the house, which is much bigger than it looks from the outside. I see flickering and hear voices and music. The house is more alive the deeper in we go. The backyard pool appears to be where the action is centered. I’m walking down that same hallway where Blond Bellhop confronted me.
I didn’t look closely at the photos on the walls last time.
A small blond boy—it has to be Scotty at maybe ten, eleven years old, standing stiffly, with his severe-looking parents by a lake. No one is smiling. The mountains, rising up in the background, look familiar.
Out those tall windows, I see the pool lit up. The glowing water refracts blue kryptonite light over everything. There’s a firepit on a lawn beside it. Boys in white tees and bathing suits hold marshmallows over it, speared on long metal sticks. There’s a full bar lit up with Christmas lights and a young dude pouring drinks. A DJ behind a booth spins vintage disco.
It’s a pool party. Except no one is swimming.
; And everyone is wearing rabbit masks.
I walk outside, toward the pool. People are cavorting, dancing, drinking. Someone blithely hands me a rabbit mask, too. I put it on, trying to blend into the crowd, as I look around for Shiloh. The mask is heavy and hot. There’s a stark unreality to what’s happening here. I think about BioShock splicers coming undone as they leave their deranged masquerade ball. I think about Frank, the demonic bunny from Donnie Darko. This is an acid-tinged bacchanal.
A boy wearing a black bunny mask, pink bathing suit, and nothing else is passing around a silver tray with tablets that resemble SweeTarts in pastel hues. Everyone is taking one, placing them on their tongues. When he gets to me, I take one, too. But I only pretend to put it in my mouth; I actually shove it in my pocket instead. A few people turn their bunny faces to look at me—I’m wearing more clothes than everyone else, and no bathing suit, so I stand out.
Only two people are unmasked. They’re cuddling on a chaise longue by the pool. I recognize Scotty right away. His wavy sweep of thick sandy hair, longer than from the TED Talk I saw, is hard to miss, and he’s aged well. He’s a good-looking dude. Though not buff, he’s trim and toned out of that leather motorcycle jacket, with long, muscular soccer legs. He’s wearing a white polo shirt, brick-colored shorts that taper above the knees, and blue boat shoes, half kicked off. He resembles a Silicon Valley playboy on a weekend retreat to Martha’s Vineyard.
The dark-haired dude nuzzling his neck is tall and shirtless, with a lithe swimmer’s build, barefoot, wearing tomato-red swimming trunks. He turns his head and a sharp jawline comes at me, glinting in the light from the pool.
Of course, I’m a young gay man, so I instantly have a visceral reaction to this boy, to the image itself—until I see who it is.
Shiloh.
The back of my throat is itchy and raw. It feels like I have all the symptoms of the flu at once. From the way they’re lying there—touching each other, gazing into each other’s eyes—it’s pretty clear they’re an item. And have been for some time. That shit is hard to fake.