The Silence of Six
Page 27
Max opened a photo named besties001.jpg. It was the same photo of him and Evan that Evan had modified to include his torrent file of data against Panjea and Tooms.
Max tapped the screen and the next image appeared, another picture of them from the same day.
He expanded the view and checked the previews of all the images. “They’re all pictures of me.”
Many of them had Evan in them, some of them were so recent that they even included Courtney, and there were even pictures of the soccer team. Evan had pictures of games Max didn’t know he’d been to, and there were also scans of newspaper clippings about the team—all the ones that mentioned Max, even briefly.
As Max clicked through every photo in the folder, all 217 of them, he realized he was crying. Tears splashed against the screen. He swiped at it with his sleeve.
Evan had always acted like he didn’t care about Max playing soccer. He’d been downright unsupportive, even jealous of all the time it took away from their friendship. But he’d collected all of these over the last few months and had been following his games.
There were other folders too—filled with things that had meant something to Evan. Things he loved. Mix CDs of his most-listened-to music. Video files: pirated movies, favorite episodes of TV shows, YouTube clips. E-books and scans of comics.
Penny was looking at her phone. “Is it okay if I play this later? I kind of want to watch it alone. Not. . . here.”
“Of course. You want to go back to the car?”
“I want to save it,” she said. “I mean, yes, for later. But also literally. I’m going to make sure I record a copy of it while it streams.”
“I wish I could have done that.”
“You have a photographic memory.”
Max smiled. “Yeah, I do.” And this video was going to replace the last image he’d seen of Evan, which had launched him on this whole adventure.
Max got up and brushed off his pants. He helped Penny up. Then he tore the sticker off Evan’s headstone, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into his pocket.
“I thought I was getting over it, but. . . are you all right?” she asked.
Max swung his backpack onto his left shoulder. “I think I will be,” he said.
As they walked back to the car, Penny slipped her hand into his. He smiled. His new life was different, and very strange, but it had potential.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“What is The Silence of Six?”
This book resulted from the collective talents and support of a multitude of people who contributed in many ways, large and small. Even I don’t know all their names, but I owe a debt of gratitude to each and every one of them.
Writing a book is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle that has lots of pieces, and some of them are missing, and a few pieces from other puzzles have gotten mixed in, and you might even be looking at the picture on the box upside down. But you start at the edges, you work your way to the center, and you rely on others to help spot holes and figure out where everything belongs.
Biggest thanks to Marshall Lewy, for always keeping the big picture in mind and for excellent guidance and extraordinary patience in getting us there over many drafts. My editor, Kristy King, was brilliant and insightful, helping to fit all the pieces together and making the book greater than the sum of its parts. My amazing copy editor, Liz Tingue, went to heroic lengths to make sure that some embarrassing mistakes were never leaked to the public. I appreciate everyone at Adaptive Books for their creativity, enthusiasm, and tireless collaboration in shaping this story; I’ve learned so much from them along the way, while also having tremendous fun.
As always, I’m extremely grateful to my author friends, accomplished storytellers who encouraged and advised me throughout this project, especially Tiffany Schmidt, Elisa Ludwig, Paul Berger, Tom Crosshill, Kris Dikeman, Devin Poore, Lilah Wild, and Fran Wilde.
Cheers to Eddie Schneider, the growing forces at JABberwocky Literary Agency, and Tigger too.
Last but not least, thank you to my family for understanding why I was often writing in coffee shops instead of interacting in the real world—and for not holding it against me. . .much. All my love to Mom, Cora, Taylor, John, Kate, Mark, Liz, and Caroline.
Adaptive would like to thank Stephen Hauser, whose provocative question What is the Silence of Six? planted the seed for this story.
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