Versailles

by Yannick Hill

  ‘I don’t know what happened to us but I know we can be that again. The four of us. Happy, productive, loving each other. I just want us to be together again. I just want to get our daughter back. Our children. Our greatest creations. I know we feel the same. I know we both want what is best, and that you wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.’ Synthea looked down at her hands again and saw two clenched fists, the knuckles white as bone. In that moment she thought she might actually break the glass. But instead she unclenched the fists in slow motion, the effort causing her to shake so violently she nearly lost her balance.

  ‘I love you, Synthea,’ her husband said, his voice seeming to crack, ‘You know that, right? I’ve always loved you. And I believe in you just like you believed in me when we first met. Things are going to be better, I promise. Our family—’

  ‘I know you love me, Casey, I know you want what’s best for me, and our children.’

  ‘Let me see you take the pill, Synthea. I know you keep one in the locket around your neck. Let me see you take the pill and this can all be over.’

  Synthea touched the heart-shaped silver locket resting on her chest. That’s right, she always carried one pill. Just in case. She opened the locket and let the small white pill fall into the palm of her hand. She knocked it back with a jerk of her head, it was hard to swallow but she managed, felt it travel slowly down her throat and further inside. Then she stuck out her tongue for Casey, showing him there was nothing there. It would be several hours before the pill would take effect, but already Synthea felt she had thrown the key away forever this time. She closed her eyes and saw whiteness in place of blackness, like being caught in a breaking wave as tall as a house, and pulled down, around and down, around and down, and down, and down, while on the surface her ship would stay becalmed forever, time torn free of the mast.

  ‘Thank you, Synthea. Thank you,’ Casey said, ‘The door is unlocked, you are free to go.’

  ‘Casey, wait. There’s something I still don’t understand. If you’ve known all this time where Missy is, why haven’t you brought her home? I’ve just been so worried about her.’

  ‘I know you’re worried, but you’ve got to trust me on this one, Synthea. All I can tell you is Missy’s safe. She needs some space, that’s all, some time to clear her head. I know it’s hard but I need you to be patient a while longer. Rest assured the situation is under control. Trust in my judgment, Synthea, as your husband and her father.’

  ‘I trust you,’ Synthea said. She nearly threw up when she realized she was telling the truth.

  30

  Leticia reached out and touched the glass. She had a strange feeling, like there was something living inside there. Some kind of animal. The room was quiet and cold like a church. But she knew that smell, Leticia closed her eyes to remember. Synthea’s perfume. She had been here, in this room. Not knowing why, Leticia spoke her name out loud. Synthea. But she wasn’t there to hear it. Leticia hugged herself against the chill. She didn’t like this place, it felt all wrong. Haunted. She took one last look at the glass cabinet and closed the white door behind her.

  Leticia walked to the end of the corridor and turned a corner. Another corridor, and, halfway down, another door left ajar. Maybe Mrs Synthea was in that room. She had to try at least. She pushed the door and it was heavy like the last one, she had to use both hands this time. It was dark except one wall, lit from below. Masks. A wall of masks. All different kinds, hundreds of them. There were some really scary ones, but Leticia didn’t want to look at them, not yet.

  Plastic animal masks, like you get at parties for younger kids. An elephant, a tiger, monkey, zebra, panda, always the same animals. Friendly, fun, but not like this, on a wall like this and mixed up with all the others. Then there were the soft ones, like you get at Halloween time: goblins, former presidents of the United States, monsters, clowns, but these weren’t the really scary ones. In random places there were other masks, very different from the others. She made herself look. They were like real people on the wall there. So much like real-life faces. It was like they were in the room with her. No eyes, but she still recognized some of them. They were people Mr Casey worked with, and famous people, like actors and other celebrities. She looked at the faces and the faces looked right back at her. River. There was River’s face. And Missy. Synthea. The whole family was there on the wall. Except Mr Casey, she couldn’t see him anywhere. But there was something. A gap. A space on the wall where a mask should be. She thought she understood, and the idea made her feel very cold inside. Leticia suddenly felt weak in her body. She looked at her hands and the fingertips where white, numb, and her feet. She opened and closed her hands, continuing to back away from the wall of masks. This wasn’t funny anymore. It was never funny but now it wasn’t funny at all. Then the voice behind her. Her name spoken quietly. It was Mrs Synthea in the doorway. She was naked and falling. Leticia caught her in her arms before she could hit the ground.

  31

  As River is typing, causing trouble on the boards, flaming just to see what burns, he has his mind elsewhere. He’s been able to do this since he was a kid. Do one thing while concentrating just as hard on something different. This other thing. It’s like a dark shape at the edge of his consciousness, a figment, but this isn’t imagination. River is beginning to understand. What happened to Missy. What’s happening to him. The sword video. unknown_user. Croc. Hide-and-seek. Come out, come out. The chocolate key. Versailles — Versailles. What all this means – his life, her life ­– what it’s all for. A shape at the edge of his consciousness. It could be human, but he isn’t sure just yet. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to look, to understand. But there is something happen-ing in this house. One hundred rooms and only Casey holds a master key.

  The intuition almost stops him typing. He knows that opening even one of those white doors would bring him closer. For most of his life he’s lived in this house, inside these walls, and never once has he set foot inside a room he wasn’t allowed to. For years he looked for the hack. The things happening in this house. This house he calls home. Like Disney World, but no Mickey Mouse. But right now River feels like he can do anything, like he has to do something. One hundred rooms and only Casey holds a master key. Bullshit, River thinks. Just one of those white doors. He stops typing. Clicks post reply on a 500-word put-down designed to make this vindictive bully of a troll he’s been stalking stop and think for one minute about the consequences of his actions. Not all trolls are created equal.

  River closes his eyes. Sees his right hand enter the frame like in a first-person video game. He’s reaching out to open one of the white doors. The door swings open, no light in the gap. River takes a step forward, deeper into his daydream, across the threshold of the forbidden room. He feels for a light switch, the room too dark to see. But there is something. Deep inside the space. A pinpoint of light, like a distant star but right here in the room. River moves towards the light, the darkness closing in. And then the door slams behind him. His eyes open because the bang isn’t in his daydream, it’s in his room.

  He grabs the rapier from the desk and shouts en garde in time to realize it’s his skateboard fallen over. It rolls toward him like it’s a ghost about to bust an ollie. River lowers the rapier and laughs, that same adrenaline like before, enough that he was ready to kill just now. Ready to kill someone. He clocks the tennis ball cannon across the room. An overwhelming feeling of being in love. A boy he hasn’t met yet. Leaping dolphins. A girl he hasn’t even met yet. A tunnel of rainbows. A feeling of being in love, of wanting to make babies, see his sister again, her endless excitement about whatever, acting out what she was saying in wide, arcing gestures, like a ballet dancer, like a ballet dancer making up her routine as she goes along. River laughs. He’s about ready to— he lets the rapier fall from his grasp and clatter to the hard floor. Hornier than a four-balled tomcat. River jumps on his skateboard and pulls a perfect casper 50-50 like he’s saying hi to a pretty girl/boy. He can taste the whit
e chocolate in his mouth, he’s about ready to pop, show the world what time it is. River Baer, breaker of codes, white knight about ready to bust some white doors. Open wide like a dream, wide like a nightmare.

  Out the corner of his eye. New Message. Screen six, a personal message from someone on scoutfan’s Instant Message server. River swiveled slightly in his chair and single-clicked the notification before it could disappear. It was from InnerFame.

  InnerFame

  Hi, pr1ncess. Saw you online and thought I’d say hey.

  pr1ncess

  Hi there, Fame, what’s happening?

  InnerFame

  I wanted to tell you I read your dream submission just now and thought it was really interesting.

  pr1ncess

  You did? It’s strange, right? I never had a dream like that before.

  InnerFame

  What’s strange about it is I had the exact same dream.

  pr1ncess

  No kidding? Like, exactly the same dream?

  InnerFame

  I think it means something, pr1ncess, I really do. And you know what’s even freakier? When I set that competition, I had this feeling. I had this feeling one of you was going to come back with the same dream. And I was right. It’s you, pr1ncess. You’re the one. I just wanted to let you know that, pr1ncess, because I think this means something. I shouldn’t be telling you this but that competition? The chance to speak to Scout herself over chat? I think we have a winner.

  pr1ncess

  *squeals*

  InnerFame

  That’s right, but pr1ncess? Don’t tell anyone, it’d only cause problems. I can’t announce officially till tomorrow.

  pr1ncess

  Your secret’s safe with me, Fame. Thank you so much. I can’t tell you what this means to me. Scout Rose has been my inspiration for as long as I can remember.

  InnerFame

  I know, sweetheart, I know.

  River spun around on his office chair. This was it, this was it. He was being recruited. pr1ncess being groomed for Deep Sky. A bone fide cult and they chose him, just like they chose his sister. It was almost too easy . . . And then a cold chill came over him as he remembered Money speaking unknown_user’s words and the underwear scroll in his safe. What if he wasn’t a step ahead of Deep Sky? He’d taken every precaution online but maybe he’d allowed his arrogance to get the better of him. What if he wasn’t a step ahead? What if all his precautions hadn’t worked and Deep Sky was just playing him for a fool? They could all be the same person: unknown_user, ruhin, InnerFame. Everybody. scoutfan itself: it could all be one dude . . .

  Had they seen through pr1ncess all along? Had Deep Sky known all this time? Was River headed into some kind of trap? Only way he was gonna know the answer to these questions was by catching up with these freaks or getting caught. And the only way that was gonna happen was if he played along. So InnerFame and unknown_user were probably the same person. So what? So maybe it was impossible to be anonymous from these people and they were watching him at this very moment, both online and off. So what? All River cared about right now was finding Missy, and whatever Deep Sky had planned for him – pr1ncess or no pr1ncess – he was pretty sure it would mean seeing his big sister again.

  32

  A sense of floating, as on the surface of an ocean, except this light is not the sun. The sun is warm and this light is cold. And ­Synthea is moving, floating on her back. But this is not the ocean. These are walls. These are artificial lights. A long ceiling. She is inside somewhere. These walls. Versailles. She wants to scream, but no sound comes. The effects of the pill. She lifts her arm into the frame, her skin, her surfaces are turned to white plastic. Or so it seems. These pharma companies. Their sick magic. Four faces. One of them Leticia. It feels like water. She is being carried. The effects of the pill but her heart is full of love for her children. Missy and River. Her children. When Missy told her everything before. The water only pink with blood. And River in his room, hidden in his room, a game of hide-and-seek gone on too long. Her missing daughter. But Casey knows. He says he knows what’s best. A wave of nausea.

  Her room, their bedroom, she knows this ceiling well. Hours gazing through this white ceiling, past it to the empty universe beyond. Well beyond the bedroom walls. They carry her to bed, the silk sheets smelling lightly of clean sweat, Casey’s scent. She loved him once, before all this. Before Versailles. She loved him. This young man with all the vision and good intentions. A charisma without witness and he let her in. And he loved her, he loves her still. She feels the cool sheets, silk sheets being pulled up over her naked body. This feeling of being put to bed. Like a child being sent away to sleep. She feels her eyelids close, two soft switches off.

  She remembers. Casey’s words in her ear, when they were still students, their relationship long distance, travelling across America to sleep in one another’s dorms. She remembers, one night, lying in his narrow bed, her head on his shoulder, his roommate already asleep.

  His words, low tones: ‘I’ll build you a house—’

  Her words, interrupting him: ‘Not if I build you one first!’

  His: ‘I’ll build you a house by the ocean, right on the ocean. You’ll be able to walk out of the house and dive right into the water . . . I can see you, I see you, you’re naked, and you’re walking right out of the house without your clothes and diving into the ocean. I want to . . .’ His words. ‘ . . . I want to have kids. More than one . . .’ His words, whispered now, ‘ . . . I want to build you a house by the ocean . . . I want us to have kids. I love you, Synthea.’ It was the second time he’d said it in as many months, and again she didn’t answer him in turn. Even then she’d felt . . . a feeling she was sinking, being pulled down, around and down.

  She remembers. Versailles being built, their house by the ocean, the biggest private residence in America. The kids playing hide-and-seek in the foundations, her walks along the beach with Casey by day, their swims in the ocean by moonlight.

  They lived in an RV for a whole year. The social network’s IPO was the biggest in the history of the internet. Synthea’s design for the word’s bestselling touch-capacitive smartphone was being heralded as a classic. They were billionaires. More money than most people would know what to do with, but Casey seemed to know exactly what he wanted. The RV meant he could oversee as much of the mansion’s construction as possible. One hundred rooms and only Casey and one or two essential figures involved in the project had access to the blueprints.

  Synthea remembers it as a golden time, those early days and months. The ocean right there, evening meals under the blue awning, Casey reading to the kids every night. Every. Night. And every other weekend they’d take the RV on these adventures, drive out into the mountains, endless picnics and hikes and impossible views, card games in the evening by the warm glow of a 12V light bulb, and when the kids were asleep she and Casey would put out a couple of folding chairs and talk and talk under the millions of stars, a sky so dark you could see the Milky Way, a vast, shimmering band, like bioluminescence.

  She can’t remember now. What they talked about.

  And the kids were young, so they probably don’t remember much about that time.

  They wouldn’t remember that when Versailles was finally built, its Pentelic marble glowing gold in the sun, everything changed. That very first night in the master bedroom, beneath the silk sheets, something felt different. She’d felt a shift in Casey. It happened during sex. Nothing violent. No, but more than once she had to ask him to go slow. That he was hurting her. And she remembers how sorry he was, saying he didn’t know what was wrong with him, that she knew he wasn’t like that, and it wouldn’t happen again. And it never did.

  But it wasn’t just that. When Versailles was built he was not the same, always distant. These great distances inside the mansion. It was too big. All those rooms. She’d ask him what was in those rooms and he would never tell, except to say it was a work in progress, and that one day he would show he
r, one day he would show her everything. She remem-bers coming home from work and not being able to find him anywhere. Asking the kids, the staff, if they’d seen Casey and they’d say no. It was like ­Versailles had swallowed him up.

  Then one day. She remembers. She was in their bed and just fallen asleep. She woke to him coming in the room. He was breathing fast, like he’d been running, or seen something that had frightened him. She remembers. Him slipping under the sheets, catching his breath, and the words in her ear: I miss you, darling. I miss you.

  She’d pretended not to wake, heard his breathing slow as he fell asleep. But then it happened the next night again, and the one after that. His coming in the room, out of breath and telling her he missed her like that, whispering it in her ear. Soon it became a mantra, one that found its way into their waking hours. I miss you, darling, he would say. But I’m right here, Casey, she would reply. It was like comforting a child sometimes. And then the mantra extended. He wanted her to start working from home. He brought the kids into it, telling her, They miss you. They tell me all the time how much they miss their mom. Come home to us, my love. I’ll get you anything you need. A view of the ocean. A window so big it will feel like you’re outside.

  It became a mantra and it found its way into their daylight hours. It was seamless. He started saying it in front of the kids. And eventually they joined in, begging their mom to come home, to work from home. You repeat something enough times to a young child and they’ll start saying it themselves.

  And so Synthea came home. And for a time it was wonderful. Being closer to the kids. River coming by to watch her work, quiet as could be, resting his head lightly on her shoulder, gasping now and then as he remembered to breathe, his clever questions about what she was doing. Missy bringing her mother lunch, lovingly prepared with Leticia’s help in Versailles’ kitchens. And she was productive, and her designs were a great success. And Casey had what he wanted: his family together, all under one roof.