Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

by Cory Doctorow

could play at being normal.

  But now Davey was everywhere, lurking in the climber, hiding in thetrees, peering through the tinsel-hung windows during class. Alan onlycaught the quickest glimpses of him, but he had the sense that if heturned his head around quickly enough, he'd see him. Davey made himselfscarce in the mountain, hiding in the golems' cave or one of the deeptunnels.

  Marci didn't come to class after Monday. Alan fretted every morning,waiting for her to turn up. He worried that she'd told her father, orthat she was at home sulking, too angry to come to school, glaring ather Christmas tree.

  Davey's grin was everywhere.

  On Wednesday, he got called into the vice principal's office. As heneared it, he heard the rumble of Marci's father's thick voice and hisheart began to pound in his chest.

  He cracked the door and put his face in the gap, looking at the two menthere: Mr. Davenport, the vice principal, with his gray hair growing outhis large ears and cavernous nostrils, sitting behind his desk, lookingawkwardly at Marci's father, eyes bugged and bagged and bloodshot, faceturned to the ground, looking like a different man, the picture of worryand loss.

  Mr. Davenport saw him and crooked a finger at him, looking stern andstony. Alan was sure, then, that Marci'd told it all to her father,who'd told it all to Mr. Davenport, who would tell the world, andsuddenly he was jealous of his secret, couldn't bear to have itrevealed, couldn't bear the thought of men coming to the mountain tocatalogue it for the subject index at the library, to study him and takehim apart.

  And he was... afraid. Not of what they'd all do to him. What Davey woulddo to them. He knew, suddenly, that Davey would not abide their secretsbeing disclosed.

  He forced himself forward, his feet dragging like millstones, and stoodbetween the two men, hands in his pockets, nervously twining at hisunderwear.

  "Alan," Marci's father croaked. Mr. Davenport held up a hand to silencehim.

  "Alan," Mr. Davenport said. "Have you seen Marci?"

  Alan had been prepared to deny everything, call Marci a liar, betray heras she'd betrayed him, make it her word against his. Protecther. Protect her father and the school and the town from what Daveywould do.

  Now he whipped his head toward Marci's father, suddenly understanding.

  "No," he said. "Not all week! Is she all right?"

  Marci's father sobbed, a sound Alan had never heard an adult make.

  And it came tumbling out. No one had seen Marci since Sunday night. Herpresumed whereabouts had moved from a friend's place to Alan's place torunaway to fallen in a lake to hit by a car and motionless in a ditch,and if Alan hadn't seen her --

  "I haven't," Alan said. "Not since the weekend. Sunday morning. She saidshe was going home."

  Another new sound, the sound of an adult crying. Marci's father, and hissobs made his chest shake and Mr. Davenport awkwardly came from behindhis desk and set a box of kleenexes on the hard bench beside him.

  Alan caught Mr. Davenport's eye and the vice principal made a shoo andpointed at the door.

  #

  Alan didn't bother going back to class. He went straight to the golems'cave, straight to where he knew Davey would be -- must be -- hiding, andfound him there, playing with the bones that lined the walls.

  "Where is she?" Alan said, after he'd taken hold of Davey's hair and,without fanfare, smashed his face into the cold stone floor hard enoughto break his nose. Alan twisted his wrists behind his back and when hetried to get up, Alan kicked his legs out from under him, wrenching hisarms in their sockets. He heard a popping sound.

  "Where is she?" Alan said again, amazing himself with his owncalmness. Davey was crying now, genuinely scared, it seemed, and Alanreveled in the feeling. "I'll kill you," he whispered in Davey's ear,almost lovingly. "I'll kill you and put the body where no one will findit, unless you tell me where she is."

  Davey spat out a milk tooth, his right top incisor, and cried around theblood that coursed down his face. "I'm -- I'm *sorry,* Alan," hesaid. "But it was the *secret*." His sobs were louder and harsher thanMarci's father's had been.

  "Where is she?" Alan said, knowing.

  "With Caleb," Davey said. "I buried her in Caleb."

  He found his brother the island midway down the mountain, sliding undercover of winter for the seaway. He climbed the island's slope, makingfor the ring of footprints in the snow, the snow peppered brown withsoil and green with grass, and he dug with his hands like a dog, tossingsnow soil grass through his legs, digging to loose soil, digging to acold hand.

  A cold hand, protruding from the snow now, from the soil, some of thesnow red-brown with blood. A skinny, freckled hand, a fingernailmissing, torn off leaving behind an impression, an inverse fingernail. Ahand, an arm. Not attached to anything. He set it to one side, dug,found another hand. Another arm. A leg. A head.

  She was beaten, bruised, eyes swollen and two teeth missing, ear torn,hair caked with blood. Her beautiful head fell from his shaking coldhands. He didn't want to dig anymore, but he had to, because it was thesecret, and it had to be kept, and --

  -- he buried her in Caleb, piled dirt grass snow on her parts, and his eyes were dry and he didn't sob.

  #

  It was a long autumn and a long winter and a long spring that year,unwiring the Market. Alan fell into the familiar rhythm of the work of anew venture, rising early, dossing late, always doing two or threethings at once: setting up meetings, sweet-talking merchants, debugginghis process on the fly.

  His first victory came from the Greek, who was no pushover. The man wasover seventy, and had been pouring lethal coffee and cheap beer down thethroats of Kensington's hipsters for decades and had steadfastly refusedevery single crackpot scheme hatched by his customers.

  "Larry," Andy said, "I have a proposal for you and you're going to hateit."

  "I hate it already," the Greek said. His dapper little mustachetwitched. It was not even seven a.m. yet, and the Greek was tinkeringwith the guts of his espresso delivery system, making it emit loudhisses and tossing out evil congealed masses of sin-black coffeegrounds.

  "What if I told you it wouldn't cost you anything?"

  "Maybe I'd hate it a little less."

  "Here's the pitch," Alan said, taking a sip of the thick, steamingcoffee the Greek handed to him in a minuscule cup. He shivered as thestuff coated his tongue. "Wow."

  The Greek gave him half a smile, which was his version of roaringhilarity.

  "Here's the pitch. Me and that punk kid, Kurt, we're working on acommunity Internet project for the Market."

  "Computers?" the Greek said.

  "Yup," Alan said.

  "Pah," the Greek said.

  Anders nodded. "I knew you were going to say that. But don't think ofthis as a computer thing, okay? Think of this as a free speechthing. We're putting in a system to allow people all over the Market --and someday, maybe, the whole city -- to communicate for free, inprivate, without permission from anyone. They can send messages, theycan get information about the world, they can have conversations. It'slike a library and a telephone and a café all at once."

  Larry poured himself a coffee. "I hate when they come in here withcomputers. They sit forever at their tables, and they don't talk tonobody, it's like having a place full of statues or zombies."

  "Well, *sure*," Alan said. "If you're all alone with a computer, you'rejust going to fall down the rabbit hole. You're in your own world andcut off from the rest of the world. But once you put those computers onthe network, they become a way to talk to anyone else in the world. Forfree! You help us with this network -- all we want from you ispermission to stick up a box over your sign and patch it into yourpower, you won't even know it's there -- and those customers won't beantisocial, they'll be socializing, over the network."

  "You think that's what they'll do if I help them with the network?"

  He started to say, *Absolutely*, but bit it back, because Larry'sbullshit antennae were visibly twitching. "No, but some of themwill. You'll see them in here, talkin
g, typing, typing, talking. That'show it goes. The point is that we don't know how people are going to usethis network yet, but we know that it's a social benefit."

  "You want to use my electricity?"

  "Well, yeah."

  "So it's not free."

  "Not entirely," Alan said. "You got me there."

  "Aha!" the Greek said.

  "Look, if that's a deal breaker, I'll personally come by every day andgive you a dollar for the juice. Come on, Larry -- the box we want toput in, it's just a