by Blake Crouch
A man wearing a headset turned in his swivel chair.
“I was told you could help me,” Ethan said.
The man stood. Short-sleeved button-down adorned with a clip-on tie. Balding. Mustached. What appeared to be a coffee stain on his lapel. He looked like he belonged in mission control, and the room certainly emanated a nerve-center vibe.
Ethan closed the distance between them, but he didn’t offer his hand.
Said, “I’m sure you know plenty about me, but I’m afraid I don’t even know your name.”
“I’m Ted. I head up the surveillance group.”
Ethan had tried to prepare himself for this moment. For meeting Pilcher’s number three, the man tasked with spying on the people of Wayward Pines in their most private moments. The urge to break his nose was even stronger than Ethan had anticipated.
Have you watched Theresa and me together?
“You’re investigating Alyssa’s murder?” Ted asked.
“That’s right.”
“She was a great woman. I want to do whatever I can to help.”
“Glad to hear that.”
“Please, have a seat.”
Ethan followed Ted over to the monitors. They sat down in swivel chairs on wheels. The control panel looked ready-made to fly an alien spacecraft. Multiple keyboards and touchscreen technology that looked more advanced than anything Ethan remembered from his world.
“Before we start,” Ethan said, “I want to ask you something.”
“Sure.”
“All you do is sit in here and eavesdrop on private lives. Correct?”
Ted’s eyes seemed to cloud—was that shame?
“That is my life.”
“Were you aware of Alyssa’s mission in town?”
“I was.”
“Okay. So here’s my question. You’re in command of the most sophisticated surveillance system I’ve ever seen. How did you miss her murder?”
“We don’t catch everything here, Mr. Burke. There are thousands of cameras in town, but most of them are indoors. We had a far more extensive exterior network when Pines began fourteen years ago, but the elements have exacted considerable damage. They’ve killed cameras. Drastically limited our eyesight.”
“So whatever happened to Alyssa…”
“Occurred in a blind spot, yes.”
“These blind spots—do you know where they are?”
Ted turned his attention to the controls, his fingers moving at light speed across an array of touchscreens.
The camera feeds vanished.
Twenty-five monitors now merged into a single image—an aerial photograph of Wayward Pines.
Ted said, “So we’re looking at the town and the valley. Pretty much every square foot of real estate inside the boundary of the electrified fence. We can push in anywhere we want.” The image zoomed down onto the school—the playground equipment crystallizing into sharp focus.
“Is this real time?” Ethan asked.
“No. This photo was taken years ago. But it’s the grid upon which all of our tracking relies.”
Ted tapped the screen at his fingertips.
A DayGlo overlay appeared.
Most of the town was covered.
Ted pointed at the screens.
“Everywhere you see this overlay, we have a current, real-time, microchip-triggered camera feed. But you’ll notice black spots, even within the coverage.” He tapped his controls and a single house filled the screen. The overhead perspective changed to a three-dimensional street-level view. With a swipe of his finger, the Victorian’s windows and wood siding stripped away and the image became an interactive blueprint.
“You’ll note there are three blind spots in this residence. However…” The DayGlo overlay was replaced with solid red. “There are no what we call ‘deaf spots.’ This house, like every other residence in town, is sufficiently miked to capture anything above thirty decibels.”
“How loud is thirty decibels?”
Ted whispered, “A library conversation.” He returned the screens to the aerial image of Pines with the DayGlo overlay. “So aside from a few blind spots in each house, most of indoor Pines is thoroughly wired. But once you get outside, even in town, the system begins to show cracks in its veneer. Look at all the black areas. There’s a backyard with no visual surveillance whatsoever. The cemetery is a disaster—just a few cameras here and there. And as you move away from the center of Pines and toward the cliffs, it only gets worse. Look at these blind spots on the south side. Twenty-acre stretches of completely unmonitored terrain. Now, in theory, we have a way to handle that.”
Ted punched in something on a keyboard.
A new overlay meshed with the DayGlo.
Hundreds of red blips appeared.
The vast majority clustered in a six-block radius near the center of town.
Some were moving.
“Recognize those?” Ted asked.
“The microchips.”
“We’re reading four hundred sixty signals. One short.”
“That’s because I’m sitting here with you?”
“Correct.”
Ted moved the cursor over a stationary blip in a building on Main Street. He tapped the touchscreen. A text bubble blossomed.
Ethan read, “Brad Fisher.”
“I believe you had dinner with Brad and his wife last night. It’s 10:11 a.m., and Mr. Fisher is in his law office. Right where he’s supposed to be. Of course, all this data can be massaged any number of ways.”
Every blip disappeared except for Fisher’s.
The time stamp at the bottom of the screen began to run backward.
His blip moved out of the building, north up Main Street, and into his house.
“How far back can you go?” Ethan asked.
“All the way to Mr. Fisher’s integration.”
The red dot raced all over town.
Months rewinding.
Years.
“And I can give him a trail,” Ted said.
A trail appeared and scribbled everywhere, like someone pushing a stylus across the screen.
“Impressive,” Ethan said.
“Of course, you understand our problem.”
“System works until people cut out their microchips.”
“It’s not an easy or painless procedure. Of course, you know that.”
“So what exactly do you do all day?” Ethan asked.
“You mean how does one go about monitoring an entire town?”
“Yeah.”
“Put on that headset.”
Ethan grabbed it off the console.
“Can you hear me?” Ted’s voice came loud and clear through the speakers.
“Yep.”
Ted’s fingers worked the touchscreens and the image of Wayward Pines and Brad Fisher’s lifelong trajectory switched back to twenty-five separate images.
“I’m one of three real-time surveillance techs,” Ted said. “Through that door over there, we have four more surveillance techs reviewing flagged footage and audio round-the-clock. Tracking persons of interest. Generating reports. Communicating with our in-town team. With you. Do you understand how the system gathers and sorts data?”
“No.”
“I’m not saying video isn’t crucial, but it’s really the audio that we lean most heavily on. Our system runs state-of-the-art voice recognition software, which pings off certain words, tones of voice. We’re not looking as closely at the actual words as the emotion behind them. We also have body-language recognition, but it’s less effective.”
“Care to demonstrate?”
“Sure. Bear with me. It’ll be disorienting at first.”
The screens began to change.
Ethan saw—
—a woman washing dishes—
—a schoolroom, with Megan Fisher pointing at a blackboard—
—the riverside park, empty—
—a man sitting in a chair in a house staring into nothing—
—a man and woman fucki
ng in a shower—
It went on like this.
Images coming faster and faster.
Snippets of audio.
Pieces of conversation meaningless and out of context, like a child turning through stations on a radio dial.
“You catch that?” Ted asked.
“No, what?”
The images froze. One of them filled the screens.
The view looked down from a ceiling at a woman leaning against a refrigerator, her crossed arms outlined in DayGlo.
“There,” Ted said. “That’s a defensive posture. See the recognition overlay?”
A man stood in front of her, his face out of view.
“Let’s see if we can’t capture a better angle.”
Three different camera views of the kitchen streamed past too quickly for Ethan to process any of it.
“Nope, that’s as good as it gets.”
Ethan watched Ted’s right hand raise a digital volume bar.
The eavesdropped-upon conversation became prominent in his headset.
The woman said, “But I saw you with her.”
The man said, “When?”
“Yesterday. You guys were sitting at the same table in the library.”
“We’re friends, Donna. That’s all.”
“How do I know it’s not more than that?”
“Because you trust me? Because I love you and would never do anything to hurt you?”
Ted killed the volume. “Okay. I remember this couple. He is actually cheating on her. He’s done it with at least four women I can think of. Real scumbag.”
“So you won’t continue to monitor this?”
“No, we will.” He typed as he talked. “I’m flagging this camera feed right now. Later today, one of my techs will scan Mr. Cheater’s footage from the last week or so. Confirm none of his trysts are getting out of control. Mr. Pilcher and Pam will have surveillance reports on their desks first thing tomorrow.”
“And then?”
“They’ll take whatever action they deem necessary.”
“You mean they’ll stop him from doing this?”
“If his behavior is seen as a threat to the general peace? Absolutely.”
“What will they do to him?”
Ted looked up from the controls and smiled. “You mean what will you do. All likelihood, you’ll be the one to handle it, Sheriff Burke.”
Ted reset the screens to the single aerial view of Wayward Pines.
“Now that you have a basic understanding of how our system works and its capabilities, I’m at your disposal. What do you want to see?”
Ethan leaned back in his chair.
“Can you pull up Alyssa’s tracking chip?”
A red blip appeared in a house at the east end of town.
Ted said, “Obviously, that’s not her. The night of her death, Alyssa removed her microchip and left it in her bedside table drawer.”
“I didn’t even know Pilcher had a daughter. How’s he holding up?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. David’s a complicated man. Values, above all, control of his emotions. He’s grieving privately, I’m sure.”
“Where’s Alyssa’s mother?”
“Not here,” Ted said in a tone that discouraged further inquiry.
“All right, let me see her movement around town going back one week.”
Ted worked at the controls.
The blip went from the house, to the community gardens, and back.
Then it moved out of the house and off the map.
“Was that when she was last inside the mountain?” Ethan asked.
“Yes.”
Alyssa’s microchip moved back into town.
Up and down Main Street.
The community gardens.
Then home again.
Ethan stood up from his chair and stretched his arms over his head.
“Can you pull another microchip?” Ethan asked.
“Sure. Whose?”
“Kate Hewson’s.”
“You mean Kate Ballinger.”
Ted keyed in her name and tapped a panel with his right hand.
A second blip materialized in another part of town.
Ethan asked, “Is it possible for you to isolate all instances where these two dots were in the same place at the same time?”
“Now you’re talking. How far back?”
“Same date range. Starting one week ago.”
Ethan watched Ted input the parameters into a data field.
When he looked back at the screens, there were four paired blips on the aerial map.
“Can you—”
“Pull video and audio feed from each encounter? Thought you’d never ask.” Ted exploded the first of two pairs of dots in the community gardens. “This was the first encounter,” he said. “Happened six days ago. Give me a second. Let me find the best angle.” He cruised through a number of vantage points—far too fast for Ethan to comprehend anything. “Okay, here’s our winner.”
Kate filled the screens. She wore a summer dress, sunglasses, a straw hat. She strolled toward the camera between rows of raised flowerbeds. A woven basket dangled from one arm, bulging with vegetables and fruit.
The back of someone’s head filled the lower part of the screens.
“Is that Alyssa?” Ethan asked.
“Yes.”
Ted upped the volume.
Kate: “No more apples?”
Alyssa: “No, they went fast.”
Kate reached into her basket and handed something to Alyssa.
“Freeze it,” Ethan said.
The image held—Kate’s arm outstretched.
“What is that?” Ethan asked.
“A green apple?”
Ted rolled video.
Kate: “You’re always bringing the loveliest fruits and veggies to us. I thought I’d bring you something from my garden.”
Alyssa: “What a gorgeous pepper.”
Kate: “Thank you.”
Alyssa: “I’ll have this tonight.”
Kate moved out of frame.
“Wanna see it again?” Ted asked.
“No, play the next one.”
They watched Kate and Alyssa rendezvous three more times.
Next day, on Main Street, the women passed each other and Alyssa shook her head.
The day after, at the riverside park, their paths crossed again.
This time, Alyssa nodded.
“Wonder what that was all about?” Ted said. He glanced at Ethan. “Any ideas?”
“Not yet.”
Ted played Alyssa and Kate’s last encounter.
It happened the day of Alyssa’s death at the community gardens, and the interaction was identical to their first.
Kate stopped at Alyssa’s vegetable stand.
They exchanged a few words.
Then Kate handed her another bell pepper.
Ted paused the video.
Ethan said, “There’s probably a note in that pepper.”
“That says what?”
“I don’t know. Meeting place and time? Instructions for Alyssa to remove her microchip? Explain something to me. I understand that when these Wanderers remove their chips you can’t track them. But don’t the cameras still pick up their movement?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Our cameras only key off microchip proximity and motion.”
“What does that mean exactly?”
“Look, there’s no way to monitor this town using the thousands of cameras all running at once. Most of the time, we’d just be scrolling through empty space. So our cameras key off the microchips. In other words, until a chip moves within range of a sensor, the camera is in sleep mode. It only transmits a video feed when a microchip pings it. And even then, when a chip is motionless for fifteen seconds, the camera reverts to sleep mode.”
“So what you’re saying is—”
“The cameras don’t run all the time. When a resident removes their mic
rochip, for all intents and purposes, they become a ghost. Somehow, these Wanderers have figured out a way to game the system.”
“Show me.”
Ted brought up a new image, said, “Here’s the last thirty seconds we have of Kate on the night Alyssa was murdered.”
On the screens, a bedroom appeared.
Kate entered the room wearing a nightgown that fell to her knees.
Her husband followed.
They climbed into bed together, killed the lights.
The overhead camera switched to night vision.
The Ballingers lay absolutely still in bed.
After fifteen seconds, the feed went dark.
Next time it picked up, morning light filled the room, and both Kate and her husband were sitting up in bed.
“Reinserting their chips,” Ethan said.
“Yes. But all night, from approximately ten fifteen until seven thirty the next morning, they were ghosts. And in that period of time, Alyssa Pilcher lost her life.”
“This is why Pilcher really runs the fêtes, isn’t it?” Ethan looked at Ted. “Am I right? It’s not only because he wants the town to police itself. It’s because when someone removes their chip, he actually needs our help to find them.”
Ethan called for Marcus.
When his escort arrived, Ethan said, “I want to see Alyssa’s quarters.”
They climbed the stairwell two flights to Level 4.
Five steps into the corridor, Ethan knew which doorway opened into Alyssa’s room by the bunches of fresh flowers scattered across the floor. He wondered if Pilcher had sent someone into town for them. All around the doorframe the wall had been papered with notes, cards, photographs, banners.
Whoever and whatever else Alyssa had been, at least inside this mountain, she was a loved woman.
“Sir,” the escort said, “I got those reports you asked for.”
Marcus handed Ethan a manila folder.
“I’d like to go inside,” Ethan said.
“Of course.”
Marcus took out his keycard and swiped it through the scanner.
Ethan turned the doorknob, walked inside.
It was a tight living space.
Windowless.
No more than a hundred square feet.
A single bed had been positioned against the far wall. There was a desk. A chest of drawers. A wall of bookshelves, half of which held books, the other half framed photographs.
Ethan studied them, the photos all of the same woman at varying ages—young girl to fifty-year-old woman.