“Caleb requested a transfer—he wanted to work in one of the clinics with the most cutting-edge research, he said. Because he was so good at his job, he was offered a position in one of the space facilities—the one I mentioned. Nothing in his file shows this, but I now know he wanted a transfer there because he suspected Quint Services of wrongdoing. Aidan had gone missing, and Caleb intended to find him. Caleb was ready to leave behind his family, his friends, and his entire life on Earth to go into space, working for an employer he knew might harm or even kill him, motivated only by this suspicion—this hope that he could save Aidan.
“When I heard that, I wondered—has anyone ever loved me that much?”
Beside Aidan, Caleb had gone eerily still.
Aidan couldn’t speak to him, not here, not now, not to say don’t worry, I know it’s not like that.
At the table, impassioned by his role as storyteller, Oz continued.
“Is there anyone in my life who would throw away everything if I was in danger?” Oz shook his head sadly. “Now that my mother is gone, I can’t say that there is. But what a force! That kind of love could fell empires. It could—and did—save lives.
“You may think that getting into the facility in space was the most difficult part, but it wasn’t. Outside of the two scientists conducting this experiment, none of the personnel at this facility knew about the runners who were being kept there. They were kept in a room that was accessible only by runner. There was no door. Caleb kept working, solving this mystery, and through the sheer force of his determination, he found a runner who could get him in. Together they found Aidan and the other imprisoned runner, freed them, and brought the whole affair to my attention.”
Oz aimed a beseeching, misty-eyed gaze at Miss Tallulah. The real Quint had probably never looked like that in his life, but it had the desired impact on their host. Her lip wobbled.
“So, you see, Miss Tallulah, I was so moved by this young man’s heroism, by the overwhelming love that motivated him, and by the suffering that I myself had caused, that it turned my entire world upside-down. Now here I am, on your show, wondering what to do next.”
Miss Tallulah reached out to put her hand on top of Oz’s. “I can see that it changed you, Mr. Quint. And since it was such an incredible story, before we do the reading, I would like to invite the two guests we have in the studio to join us at the table.”
Caleb was blushing scarlet, a nice complement to Aidan’s white knuckles. Christ. They had no choice but to play along. If they didn’t, this whole thing would be a waste.
Despite his blush, Caleb was more present than Aidan, and he was the one who pulled folding chairs up to the table next to Oz. Before the two of them moved into the frame, Caleb tapped gently on the side of Aidan’s glasses.
Oh. He had to show his real face for this.
Aidan folded up the disruptor and switched to his real glasses, blinking. He’d have to remember which face he was wearing from now on.
They sat close in the small space, made smaller by the camera pointed at them.
“I didn’t do it alone,” Caleb said. “I had a lot of help.”
“But the story is true?” Miss Tallulah asked. “You really left your entire life behind to go search for Aidan in space?”
“Yes,” Caleb said. “I just wanted to clarify that I had help.”
That was the only clarification he wanted to make? Not “we’re not actually in a romantic relationship, just very good friends”? Trapped, Aidan sat still and silent, clenching his fists under the table.
Caleb laid a hand on his shoulder. It was exactly the kind of comforting touch he might have offered in private. Now there was a camera on them, and Aidan couldn’t trust it.
“Aidan doesn’t usually stay in the spotlight for more than a few seconds at a time,” Caleb said to Miss Tallulah, a wry allusion to Aidan’s past. It was a bad idea to bring it up. People would remember they hated Aidan.
But Caleb gave her one of his dazzling smiles and she returned it, then said, “I’m so happy the two of you have found each other. Tell me, what made you go to such lengths?”
“I knew I couldn’t live without him.”
It had the ring of truth when Caleb said it. It didn’t sound at all like he was playacting some grand love story for an audience, and yet a knife twisted in Aidan’s gut. Why had Caleb put in such an effort to save him? They had a lasting friendship, sure, but Aidan had been a shitty friend in the past few years. Why hadn’t Caleb given up on him?
Caleb pressed his thigh into Aidan’s. Under the table. Where no one could see.
Aidan met his eyes. Caleb’s gaze had some urgency to it, but the message was indecipherable.
Caleb took his hand and put it on the table. Right. Okay. A public display of affection. They needed to be convincing. Their romance had convinced a heartless trillionaire to give up his evil schemes and set out on the path to redemption. If a little fake handholding was all it took, Aidan could do that.
Caleb stroked his hand over Aidan’s, a quiet show of comfort and intimacy. There was no such thing as fake handholding. Either you were holding someone’s hand or you weren’t.
He smiled, because no matter the circumstances, looking at Caleb made him want to smile.
It would be so, so easy to let himself believe this was real.
Caleb was telling a story now, a well-worn childhood scrape in which they’d gotten in trouble for trying to return a bike that other kids had stolen. Aidan’s whole life was like that, he was saying—Aidan had a drive to do the right thing no matter what it looked like to other people. Sometimes you had to shout and trespass and break a few rules to do the right thing, but he’d never hurt anyone.
He’s making me look good, Aidan realized. Caleb was doing this for him, because Aidan was incapable of doing it for himself. He didn’t know how to be likable and charming. He certainly didn’t have Caleb’s flair for lying. Still, it wasn’t right to make Caleb do all the work.
“Caleb is being so generous,” Aidan interrupted. “He’s downplaying his own contributions, which is typical. He won’t talk himself up, so I’ll have to do it. Everything Oswin said about him is true. He gave up his family and his home and his life to come look for me, and if he hadn’t found me, I wouldn’t be here today. I don’t even know how to express how grateful I am. How grateful I’ll always be.”
Caleb squeezed his hand. He knew acting didn’t come naturally to Aidan. His smile was an affirmation that Aidan had done a good job.
Funny. Every word he’d said had been true.
“This is so touching,” Miss Tallulah said. “I could let you talk all day. But Mr. Quint did ask me for a reading, and I think we should do one. We’ll do a simple two-card spread to answer your question about how to move forward. Your first card represents the situation, and your second card represents a challenge.”
Oz pulled out The Runner, which had an image of a human silhouette in white against a shimmering bluish-black background. The figure was upside down.
“The Runner, reversed,” Tallulah said.
Aidan stared. He didn’t believe in any of this, and yet, here he was: a runner, reversed. Was Caleb having the same reaction? His eyes were intent on Oz’s hand pulling the second card. Aidan nudged him, but their shared glance passed too quickly to decode.
Oz laid his second card of solid black on the table. The Void.
It was a neat trick, if it was a trick. Not all the cards in the new deck had to do with the Nowhere, but Oz had drawn two that did. The second card was a rectangle of impenetrable black. What would Tallulah say about it? Quint himself was like a void—heartless, implacable, powerful—and in a way, so was Oz. An imposter. An emptiness. A person with no ties, no roots, no history.
“Interesting,” Miss Tallulah murmured.
Aidan had never participated in anything remotely like this. Would she question Oz to fish for clues? Would she hem and haw for a long time?
“I usually like to spe
ak elliptically about these things. Poetically. But we’re nearing the end of our time today and I don’t want to keep you waiting, especially when the answer is so obvious. You’ve harmed people, Oswin Lewis Quint. You’ve harmed runners. As your solution, you drew The Void. You know what you have to do. You came here to confess—to pour out the poison you were keeping inside. To make space. Emptiness. You were right to do that. Keep doing it.”
“What?” Oz said. Aidan was as puzzled as Oz. They hadn’t discussed this with her beforehand. Caleb had been sure they’d be able to spin whatever she said.
Aidan hadn’t expected her to fulfill all his wildest dreams.
Tallulah tapped the cards with a fingernail. “You did wrong, and maybe you can never make it right, but you can try. Empty your bank account and turn yourself in.”
Caleb had the best poker face of the three of them, but Tallulah’s bluntness had startled even him. Then Aidan saw what Caleb’s wide-eyed gaze was focused on and realized it wasn’t only what she’d said.
The red number in the lower left hand corner of the screen blinked every second as it refreshed. Twenty-two thousand people were watching.
11
Fact-checked
The Inland New York offices of Quint Services were housed in a skyscraper, and the lobby was a sterile glass-and-steel affair, its hard surfaces echoing with the muted conversations of the staff and the authoritative click of high heels. The ceiling soared above them. It shouldn’t have been so hard to breathe.
Caleb had pretended to be in love with Aidan in front of twenty-two thousand people. More importantly, he’d pretended to be in love with Aidan in front of Aidan.
For the third time.
A young woman in a severe black skirt suit with a chin-length black bob greeted Oz. She was brimming with on-the-clock concern and didn’t spare a glance at Caleb or Aidan, who was wearing the disruptor again.
It had been nice to see his face.
“Sir. We weren’t expecting you back so soon.”
Caleb had to control his astonishment. Oz had Quint’s face, so no one questioned them. They were just going to walk through Quint’s entire life like this.
“You thought I’d want to sleep in a monk’s cell in space?” Oz said. He was enjoying himself too much, overacting the tyrannical executive. Caleb would have to tell him to tone it down once they were in private.
The employee didn’t recoil, but Oz’s tone alarmed her. She tamped down her startled motion and said, “Of course, that makes perfect sense. What can I do for you, sir? And your… associates?”
This was her only acknowledgement of Caleb and Aidan’s presence. If she’d glanced at them, Caleb had missed it.
He had probably missed it. He kept nervously checking his side, like maybe if he was quick enough, he could catch sight of Aidan. He couldn’t. The disruptor worked as designed. It was unsettling to be confronted with someone else’s face.
If they were going to keep doing this, the only time he’d see Aidan’s real face was when they were doing an interview, pretending to be in love.
Caleb scrutinized the woman’s body language for a reaction. Was she the type of person to watch Miss Tallulah’s broadcast? He didn’t think so.
“Get me home,” Oz said. He gave Aidan a disgusted glance. A nice touch, acting as if Aidan was the runner. “And not by runner! I’ve had enough of their kind for today.”
Quint had kept his prejudices hush-hush from the outside world. It was unlikely he’d ever said anything so openly bigoted, and the employee’s reaction confirmed it.
For a moment, Caleb thought the woman was going to ask Oz if he was feeling alright, but she decided against it and nodded instead. Questioning the boss’s mood wasn’t a risk worth taking today. Instead, she showed them to the underground parking lot. Caleb restrained his reaction. He’d expected Quint to have a driver—most cars were self-driving, but rich people did love to be served—and he’d thought that would solve the problem of Oz not knowing which car to take. There were eight cars parked in front of them, mostly sleek, black, modern machines. Did all of them belong to Quint?
Oz was already striding ahead. He’d chosen the most distinctive car, an elegant, vintage model in silver. It was a good bet that Quint would have picked something rare and special for himself, but Caleb panicked. That car might be too old to be self-driving. If it didn’t know Quint’s home addresses, it was no good to them.
The car unlocked at Oz’s approach, its recognition algorithm more easily fooled and less given to doubts than the human employee’s. A good sign. It might be a few decades old, but Quint must have updated its systems. It could probably drive them to wherever he lived.
Once the three of them were inside, Oz said, “Home,” and the car called up a destination.
“That’s across the state line,” Caleb said. Quint apparently had some kind of estate in Connecticut. That was his nearest residence. “We don’t have internal visas. We’ll never make it through the border.”
“What are you talking about? Visas?” Oz asked.
“Maybe they won’t ask for them,” Caleb said, seeking reassurance from Aidan, who shrugged. “New York and Connecticut aren’t hostile to each other. Not like if we were trying to cross from Illinois to Indiana.”
Not that Caleb would really know. He’d never needed a visa to go anywhere. He’d only ever traveled to other states via the Nowhere.
He was lucky to have Aidan as a friend. Most people never left their home state, whether they liked it or not. Or if they did leave home, it was to join the Orbit Guard.
“This place is weird,” Oz said, since Caleb hadn’t answered his question. “But by the looks of it, we have a couple hours until this becomes a problem, and meanwhile, that woman in the suit is still watching us and waiting for us to drive out of here. Cross that border when we get to it?”
Oz gave him a reassuring smile. Or maybe he was just pleased with his play on words. If Caleb had to spend a few hours trapped in a car with Aidan and a relative stranger, at least the stranger was easygoing.
“Nice work so far,” Aidan said. “Let's get out of here.”
Caleb had never driven out of the city, and he spent the first hour fascinated by the surrounding sprawl, which eventually petered off into a patchwork of open green space and wealthy little towns dotted with trees, all so different from the city streets where he’d grown up or the sterile claustrophobia of Facility 17. It was nice, being back on the surface, breathing fresh air and looking at the sky.
Then his body got the better of him and he fell asleep.
He woke when the car slowed. Aidan was asleep next to him, his head pillowed on Caleb’s shoulder. Shit. They were at the border already? He should have planned for this. What would he say if they asked him who he was? He should have hidden himself in the trunk instead of napping in the back seat. Worse, what could he possibly say about Aidan?
At least Oz was awake and cheerfully alert in the front seat. He wasn’t driving the car, but he’d still chosen the seat with the steering wheel, just in case.
A uniformed border guard peered in the window, saw Oz’s face, and nodded respectfully. “Pass on through, sir.”
They were already rolling away from the checkpoint by the time Caleb’s brain caught up. The guard had barely glanced into the back seat. Aidan hadn’t stirred, his face hidden against Caleb’s shoulder. “They just... let us through?”
“I’m famous,” Oz told him smugly. “I could get used to this, you know.”
Caleb huffed. He recognized Oz’s lighthearted intent, but couldn’t quite bring himself to laugh. Oz had sprung that love story on them during a live broadcast, and Caleb hadn’t yet forgiven him. No matter the success of the ploy, it felt… dirty. Not because he was lying. Caleb liked lying well enough, or at least, he liked acting.
But Aidan had asked him to stop. Caleb wanted to respect that, and then he’d played along with Oz’s idea. It was exploitative, and Aidan probably felt betrayed.
Caleb glanced down at his sleeping form, wondering when they’d get a chance to talk this out.
“He asleep?”
“Yeah.”
“So I know this is none of my business, but… you and Aidan.”
“Oh, now you want to talk about it? After you pulled that stunt on us?”
Oz’s shoulders rose and fell. He didn’t turn around. He wasn’t driving; there was no need for him to keep his eyes on the road. “What did you want me to do, pull something from Quint’s unknown backstory and wait to get fact-checked? If we get caught, I don’t get paid. So I improvised. I watch a lot of soap operas. I know what makes a good story. And it worked. You were both great. So how much of it was acting?”
Out the window, an unremarkable blur of fields and towns passed by. Aidan slumped against his shoulder, warm and heavy, breathing peacefully.
Caleb didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive.
As expected, the house had surveillance everywhere.
It was a sprawling and hideous hybrid of too many corners and columns in sand-colored stone, with a long loop of driveway curving in front, cutting through the manicured lawn. The gate slid open as they approached.
Quint had made his fortune in facial recognition algorithms, so it was only natural that his house was a nightmarish panopticon. Aidan’s skin crawled as they crossed the threshold. Was there any greater proof that Quint was a soulless greed machine?
The door had opened as smoothly as the wrought-iron gate, but there was no one standing in the entryway to greet them. No sign of any staff anywhere.
“Hello,” said the house, and Aidan jumped.
Caleb grabbed his hand and squeezed. Aidan couldn’t tell if it was for show. He didn’t want to like it, but he did.
“Hello,” Oz said, too cheerful, like walking into what was ostensibly his own home was a grand adventure.
The house’s voice was female, exceedingly polite and educated. “Welcome home, Mr. Quint. I wasn’t expecting you. I apologize for the state of the house.”
Out of Nowhere Page 12