The Collide

by Kimberly McCreight

  “Girls?” Brian asks, like she’s asking him to round up goats.

  “Girls identified as Outliers.”

  Brian has heard the term, obviously. He was there helping Quentin, too. Riel did draw a line between Level99 and the Outliers, though. Level99 tracked down Dr. Lang’s research and hacked into his data, but that had been under the pretense of stopping some asshole scientist from exploiting people—solidly within their mission. Her work with Marly and the tests—that was all on her own time. She couldn’t use Level99 for her own personal vendetta. This now, though, was different. This was about protecting innocent girls.

  “And Kendall?” Brian asks. “You mean the guy who killed all those people?”

  “Yes, that guy. But before you do any of that, I need you to check on Wylie first,” Riel says. “Last I heard, she was still in jail. I need to be sure. Also, I need an address for this guy.”

  Riel digs out of her pocket some folded pages. She hands one to Brian with the name of the Outliers from the hospital she’d dug up with Wylie; the other has David Rosenfeld’s name and the title of his book. The book is better—and scarier—than she expected. Riel didn’t read much, just enough to get his main point: the government does even more fucked-up shit than she realized.

  “Okay, that’s like ten things,” Brian says. “What’s in it for me?”

  “What’s in it for you? How about not losing your goddamn job?” Riel snaps. “I wasn’t asking. I was telling you.”

  Riel can feel Brian swallowing back about ten different ways he wants to tell her to go screw herself. Instead, he rubs his jawline and looks around. Some of the younger hackers are listening now. They know the rules: Riel is the boss. They’ll throw Brian out on his ass if she says the word.

  And Riel feels better being reminded of this. Her power might be limited to this place, this moment. But power is like fire: to spread it’s got to start somewhere.

  “Fine,” Brian says, looking down. “We’ll look into it.”

  “Into what?” Riel asks.

  “All of it,” Brian says. “It could take a while, though. It’s a lot.”

  “Start with Wylie and the Outliers then,” Riel says, handing Brian a second page. “This is a list of what we have on them. Some are just names, and not all the emails work. We need them to come to the address at the top. Today.”

  Brian checks his watch. “Today? And go somewhere? They don’t even know me.”

  He has a point. And she can feel Marly eyeing her—not as easy as it looks, is it?

  “Then just get us contact information for all of them,” Riel says. “We’ll figure out how to get them there.”

  BY EARLY AFTERNOON, Riel and Marly sit on the floor of Marly’s room, waiting. They’d ended up spending two hours at Level99 sending messages to the Outliers. Marly’s email had been pretty vague—she apologized for not being in touch, described a threat to the Outliers, said that volunteers were needed. Oh, and that there was no reason to panic, though. That was it, more would be explained when they came that afternoon.

  At least Wylie had been pretty easy to find. Or it was easy to figure out where she wasn’t: jail. She’d been released on bail. Where she was now was a mystery. Riel felt proud of that. She’d taught Wylie well. But there was something else Riel felt when she thought of Wylie, something much darker. Something she didn’t like at all. Worry.

  Brian found David Rosenfeld’s address easily, too. Trickier were Kendall and the truth about her grandfather. Those were going to take more time. Brian said he’d keep working and report back. Riel had her doubts, about how hard he would try or how likely he was to succeed. But it was too risky to poke around more from Marly’s. Whatever Brian found would be better than nothing.

  “How many actually said they would come again?” Riel asks as she checks her watch. She gets up and starts to pace back and forth in front of Marly’s door. She’s worried that this rounding up of the Outliers has been too easy. Maybe no one will show.

  Marly pulls a piece of paper out of her back pocket. “We reached twenty-seven of the sixty-five locals, including the girls on the list from the hospital,” she says. “Twenty-one said they wanted to help. That’s nearly eighty percent, and only a few hours’ notice.” Marly is trying hard to look on the bright side, spinning the numbers in the best possible way. When you start with seventeen thousand possibilities, twenty-one definitely sounds like a tiny number. Still, there’s comfort in Marly staying an optimist. One of them needs to be. “Not a bad start. Coming here tonight are only eleven. Short notice and all. People have parents. Are you ready with some kind of, like, speech or something?”

  “Speech?” Riel asks.

  It seriously had not occurred to her, but Marly is right, a good leader would have some kind of kick-ass inspirational words prepared. Riel did that the first day with Level99. She’d been so worried about getting everyone’s respect. Somehow, right now, she’d overlooked that she’s the de facto leader of this Outlier shitshow. She is, though. Of course she is. And Marly is her trusty lieutenant.

  “Yes, a speech about the whole Outliers thing?” Marly feels let down, but she’s trying to hide it. “What it is. What it means. What the hell you think your grandfather might be up to.”

  “But I don’t know,” Riel says, and suddenly she feels so dumb. “I don’t have answers about anything yet.”

  “You still know way more than these people will,” Marly says. “Some of them don’t know anything. The girls in the hospital don’t, and the maybe-Outliers—”

  “Maybe-Outliers?” Riel asks.

  “Oh, that’s what I call the Outliers we identified through our test,” Marly says, a little sheepishly. “I mean we don’t actually know how good that test was. Self-reporting measures are kind of inherently suspect. You learn that even as an undergrad. Those girls might be Outliers, but it’s not the same as them being officially identified in one of Lang’s tests. He included biological data like heart rate and all that. Just to be clear, I’m a maybe-Outlier,” Marly says. “No one has officially tested me.”

  “You’re definitely an Outlier,” Riel says. “I can feel it.”

  Marly is embarrassed by how badly she needed Riel to say that. But Riel really has no doubt. The way emotions flow back and forth between them is like a current. Not that, technically, Riel has ever been tested either.

  “Anyway,” Marly says. “The maybe-Outliers at least got a little description of Outliers when they took our online test. But from those email exchanges I had with the girls from the hospital, I think they still believe what they were told: that there was some terrorist attack.”

  “So they got sprung from the hospital and just accepted what they’d been told?” Riel asks. “If they were actually Outliers, you’d think they’d be suspicious.”

  Riel makes another mental note: tell them not to be so gullible.

  “Come on, you and I both know how easy it is to ignore your gut when the world tells you to,” Marly says. “Anyway, explain a little at least. The basics, that’s all I’m saying. So we’re all on the same page.”

  “Too bad I can’t promise them everything is going to be okay.”

  Marly shrugs. “If they really are Outliers, they wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

  IT’S NEARLY TWO o’clock when the first girl arrives. She has red curly hair tucked under a red bandanna, and she is so afraid. Afraid to be knocking. Afraid to come in after Riel answers the door. She wants to be there. She just wants to be reassured that Riel and Marly are for real.

  “I’m Elise,” she says. “I was in the hospital.”

  Her voice catches on the word “hospital.” She may not have known what was going on in there, but at least Elise knew it was wrong. Riel is going to put that down as a mark in her favor.

  “You’re in the right place,” Riel says. She should have some sense that Riel is telling the truth. Beyond that, she’ll have to reassure herself. All these girls need to learn to put their own minds at e
ase.

  Riel is ready to step up and be a leader; she’ll even figure out the right thing to say. But she’s not wasting her time holding hands.

  AN HOUR LATER everyone has arrived, eleven girls in all. Some sit on Marly’s bed, others stand along the wall, the rest sit cross-legged on the floor. Some narrow their eyes skeptically, others look scared. Together they feel way too much for Riel to get a clear read on how any single one of them feels. And actually, that’s okay. Riel isn’t sure she wants to know.

  Three of them are from the hospital—Elise, Ramona, and Becca. And it comes out quickly that they all took one of Ben Lang’s follow-up tests, for fun (Ramona) or money (Becca). Elise was thinking it might help for college—how is totally not clear. The rest of the girls are the maybe-Outliers from the online tests. Together, the group is of every shape and size and skin color. They have different tastes in clothes and different mannerisms—bold, anxious, silly. Some look like they might come from families with money; one girl is almost homeless. Their differences are comforting. If they are not all the same, they will be harder to contain. Impossible to destroy.

  “Thanks for coming,” Riel says finally, as she stands in front of them. “Some of what I’m about to tell you might sound kind of out there. So listen, really listen. Then ask yourself whether you believe me. If you still think it’s bullshit: no hard feelings, seriously. You can take off anytime. What we want is for you to listen to your own gut. About everything. That’s why we’re here.” Riel pauses to look around the room. “I want you to realize how much time you’ve spent ignoring how you really feel. How much energy you’ve wasted listening to a world that says you’re wrong before you open your mouth. What you need to do now instead is to own it—how you feel, who you care. Own your truth. So if your gut tells you to go right now, go. What I want most is for you to follow your instincts and walk out that door.”

  Riel lets the silence stretch out long and uncomfortable after that. But nobody moves. Not an inch. Not a single girl.

  “Okay then,” Riel says when it’s obvious no one is going anywhere. “Welcome. You’re all Outliers, at least we’re pretty sure you are. Now let’s talk about what the hell that means.”

  Riel goes on then, getting into details. She does her best to explain Dr. Lang’s research and what “reading” is. She tells the group more than once that if Wylie were there, she could explain the science much better. Riel does the best she can, focusing on the basics: there is research that proves Outliers exist, there is good reason to believe the girls in that room are some of them, and that makes what they can do and who they are special. It also puts a target on their backs.

  Maybe.

  “Where is Wylie, anyway?” the girl named Ramona asks.

  “She’s been in jail. They think she set some fire in the hospital,” Riel says. “They just let her out on bail. I don’t know where she is right now.”

  “Oh.” Ramona feels a wave of unmistakable guilt.

  “Why?” Riel asks. “What?”

  Ramona looks around the room at the other girls. But they just stare back at her blankly. They can feel Ramona’s guilt, too. In a room full of Outliers, nothing is secret.

  “Don’t bother lying,” Riel says before Ramona responds, relieved for the example. “And this applies to all of you. You can’t lie to other Outliers. You can all read each other. If you stick around, I’ll teach you how to block—which honestly might be the most important thing—and then you can keep some things to yourself. But when someone blocks, you’ll probably know they’re hiding something. Who knows, maybe we’ll figure out another, better way of blocking that would be invisible. That would definitely help.” Riel turns back to Ramona. “Anyway, you feel super guilty about Wylie. You might as well spill why.”

  Ramona looks down, sad now more than guilty. “I told the police that I thought Wylie had probably set the fire,” she begins, then looks up, eyes wide, desperate. “I mean, Wylie wouldn’t explain anything in the hospital, and there was all this weird stuff happening, some doll and all that. She chased after this guy and, like, tackled him. She was all over the place. I wasn’t sure about the fire, but she was definitely lying about something.”

  “She was,” Riel says. “You were right about that. You were just seriously wrong about what. Next time maybe get some facts before you toss somebody under the bus.”

  Ramona looks down, willing herself through the floor. And Riel feels like an ass. She’s the last one who should be trying to claim some moral high ground.

  “Listen, everyone makes mistakes,” Riel goes on, more gently. Or as gently as she is able. Then she looks back over the girls. “But from now on, we’ve got to have one another’s backs. All we have in this particular fucked-up situation is us.”

  JASPER

  IT WAS ALREADY THREE P.M. WHEN JASPER DROPPED OFF LETHE’S BIKE AT THE repair shop. They told him it wouldn’t be ready until four p.m., leaving him with a dangerously long hour to kill. Especially dangerous because the only repair shop he knew of was right near Wylie’s house. And so there he is, driving closer now, only a few blocks away.

  Jasper just wants to look one last time at Wylie’s house before he all-the-way closes the door to her, to them. Closure, that’s it, that’s what he tells himself as he finally turns his Jeep down her block. He doesn’t even care if he spots Wylie, actually. This is just about marking a place—her house—to say his final good-bye.

  Too bad it’s such a pathetic lie that Jasper can’t even bring himself to believe it as he spots her house up ahead.

  It’s also not lost on Jasper that he has already begun fucking everything up like his mom was afraid he would, starting with missing the team meeting the night before.

  “Dude, where the hell were you?” Chance had asked when he finally got home from his run at eleven thirty p.m. last night. “Coach was seriously pissed.”

  “Shit,” Jasper had said, closing his eyes and hanging his head as he remembered the team meeting. After all that, coming back specifically to make it, he got Wylie’s note and forgot all about it. “What did he say?”

  “‘Where the hell is Jasper?’ That’s what he said. I lied and told him your mom was sick,” Chance said, pleased with himself. “He seemed to get over it after that, but you might want to have some proof, or whatever, that she was sick. Also, I wouldn’t do it again.”

  “Thanks, man, seriously,” Jasper had said.

  And he is still grateful. Coach mentioned a doctor’s note at practice that morning, and that was after making him stay for an extra hour of drills and then to clean up the locker room. Hopefully, he can talk his mom into getting a note for herself. She does work in a hospital. Of course that means he’ll have to come up with a good reason he missed that meeting, one that doesn’t involve Wylie.

  Except sitting there now, parked in his Jeep a block away from Wylie’s house, those reasons feel in kind of short supply. Jasper doesn’t see any signs of life up at Wylie’s house anyway. Like it’s past midnight, instead of past three in the afternoon.

  Okay, so that’s it. No one there, nothing else to say.

  Jasper is about to roll past the house when he catches sight of the front door. It’s hanging wide open just like it was the last time, when Wylie was in the hospital and someone trashed the place. That he’s at least got to check out.

  He parks across the street and up a bit, out of sight between two other cars. Jasper watches the house in his rearview, for one minute, then two. Nothing. Just the door still hanging open weirdly. He’s just started to think that maybe he should just get out and at least go close the front door, when a huge guy appears in Wylie’s doorway, toting a cardboard file box. He pauses on the steps, looking right, then left, before heading down to the curb with the box. He waits as a white van drives down the street and pulls up alongside him. He puts the box in back, then climbs into the passenger seat before the van pulls away.

  Holy shit. Who the hell was that? What was that? Suspicious as hell,
that’s what. Jasper finds himself following the van before he’s fully decided it’s the best idea.

  Is there a part of him that’s hoping if he follows this huge, maybe dangerous dude, maybe up to no good, he might somehow win Wylie back? Definitely. Does he know that’s stupid? Yep. Too bad that’s not going to stop him.

  THE GUY—OR whoever is driving the guy—drives for a long time, an hour nearly, much longer than Jasper was prepared for. Soon they have left Newton behind, and also any sign of life. All around are just trees and more trees.

  Eventually, the van pulls off the main road onto a long, unpaved driveway that disappears between the trees. Jasper passes the driveway and finds a place to park his Jeep out of sight. Only choice is to head back on foot.

  Jasper is about a hundred yards down the potholed driveway when he finally makes out a couple of warehouses up ahead in the distance through the trees. They are long and beige, one behind the other. But it’s so quiet and totally deserted out there in the woods. It’s seriously a weird place for warehouses, at least ones where anything good is going on inside.

  Jasper makes his way carefully onward, staying along the edge of the driveway, reassuring himself the whole way that he can turn back any time, dive into the trees if he needs to. There is a good distance still between him and the warehouses. And whatever is in that van.

  Jasper stops when he finally hears the voices. No, not voices. One voice. A man’s. He is pretty sure he knows it, too—one of the agents who followed them to the house on Cape Cod. He never saw the guy’s face. But he’ll never forget that voice coming from Riel’s grandfather’s front door as he and Leo and Wylie hid in the office. “Klute,” Wylie had said after. He’d come by her house before, too, apparently.

  When Jasper leans over now, he can see him—Klute, pacing in the space between the warehouses—talking on the phone.

  “Yeah,” he hears Klute say. “I’m taking care of them right now.” Silence as he listens to whoever is on the other end. “Yeah, where we agreed. I will. I’ll confirm before I leave.”