by Ian Bull
“This is the cargo hold,” Pauline says as we walk the last few yards through the metal toothpaste tube. We reach the cockpit, which is a mass of switches and gauges from before the digital age. “And this is where I make the magic happen.”
Lionel sticks his head in over my shoulder. “Too small. I can’t make it work in here.”
Pauline steps back into the front cargo area and lifts a panel in the floor to reveal a four-foot-deep well. “The fore baggage hold is about sixteen feet long. You can put stuff in here.”
Lionel claps his hands. “Perfect. Jim can weld my frame into this. It’ll hold the encryptor and the transmitter, and then we’ll drill through and mount the transmitting antenna under it, on the outside of the plane.”
Chatter rises up from the designers. “But we want to use this storage area,” Hachiro says.
“Show me why you need it,” I tease. “Get your easels and whiteboard up, get this presentation going. Otherwise, Lionel and his gear will get that luggage compartment.”
Hachiro’s team rushes to obey. They run out of the plane and return with their gear and set up a long whiteboard on two easels. They dump out paper from a cardboard tube, unroll it, and tape it to the white board, revealing a drawing of the interior fuselage of the plane, including two open luggage areas, fore and aft, below our feet.
Hachiro clears his throat, points at the drawing, and begins. “This fuselage is forty-four feet long, eleven feet wide, but only seven feet high in the middle. But if we rip out the floors and expose the luggage area in front and back of the landing gear that’ll give us four more feet down, and create two levels that contestants must fight through. They’ll be like sunken fighting pits. It also gives us more space to stow the prizes—the parachutes, money, food and water—but also the dangers. It’s a risk going into the pits, but you must go in to win.”
Yoshi and Yuko hang a plastic overlay over the drawing, which shows an anime mockup of six men fighting within the fuselage, some near the front, some in the two sunken fighting pits, and two near the back. Two fight over a parachute, two attack each other with batons, and two fight next to an open box of writhing snakes.
“You’re putting snakes on a plane?” I ask. “You were serious back in Hong Kong?”
“We’re in Arizona. Rattlesnakes are easy to find,” Hachiro says.
“Explain how they’ll work in the game,” I say.
Katashi yanks out another plastic overlay from another tube and tapes that down. Drawings of metal boxes now line the fuselage, welded into the floor and the walls. Hachiro continues. “We’ll install metal boxes throughout the plane, on both levels. Some boxes will have parachutes. Some will have money. Some will have water and food for survival. Some will have weapons for close combat—clubs, daggers, rope, nunchucks. And some boxes will be booby trapped with snakes or bombs. Some boxes must be opened by hand, while others will be set to explode at five minute intervals throughout the game.”
“I have to admit, Lionel, I’m liking these drawings,” I say, just to amp him up.
“I need this space! Have you ever built a satellite? Sent a rover to Mars?” he asks me and Hachiro. His voice echoes off the metal walls. “You want me to turn this plane into a flying broadcast truck that transmits twenty high-def signals across 500 miles of open desert!”
Hachiro’s punk band mutters Japanese curses under their breath while Jim, Sydney, and Kat snicker, which pisses off Lionel even more. But my news is going to make the tension worse.
“Actually, Lionel, it’s more than twenty. The contestants will be wearing GoPro cameras as well,” I say. “Hachiro, can you show us your camera layout?”
Hachiro’s team attaches another plastic overlay, this one showing all the cameras. “The CCTV cameras will be rigged into impact resistant security domes mounted into the ceiling and the walls, every six feet. Those will be hardwired with cables running through the plane to your box. Plus, each contestant will wear a microphone around his neck and a GoPro camera with built-in Wi-Fi on his chest.”
“How the hell is that going to work?” Lionel shouts.
“A harness secured with Velcro. We get a POV, like in a first-person shooter videogame.”
“Six different Wi-Fi signals bouncing around inside a metal fuselage that I’m supposed magically pull from thin air? Plus their audio?”
“I’m the game designer. I’m not the IT guy,” Hachiro says, and looks at me.
“Sorry Lionel. We already bought twenty CCTV and twenty HD GoPros. I overdo it.”
“This is a fucking joke! I’m screwed!” Lionel shouts.
Pauline leans into the shouting match. “And I want to dump the staircase before takeoff. Can I throw a temper tantrum until I get my way?”
“Fuck you!”
Tina shoots me her “fix this” glare. I’ve dealt with bigger mutinies than this.
“Lionel, we need to accomplish the impossible. That’s why I hired you,” I say, pointing at him. “You’re making more money than you ever did landing a rover on Mars, so make it work.”
Before Lionel can object, my and Tina’s phones ding simultaneously. We’re both getting texts. I put up my hand and signal my misfits to be quiet. “Your leader requests silence!” I yell, and the shouting drops to a low rumbling.
“Warden Dirk Kaler has time tonight in Idaho, ten p.m.,” Tina says to me, and then looks at Kat and Sydney. “Book me on the evening flight, and then the earliest flight back tomorrow.”
Kat and Sydney nod, already working their phones.
“Thank you,” I say to Tina, and I mean it. My producing pleasure drops whenever I think about the American contestant albatross around my neck. With this misfit revolt to handle, I’m glad she’s on it. When I check the text on my phone, I feel joy: Peter Heyman here, driving on Hwy 86 past Ryan Airfield. I see a DC-9. Is that you?
My misfits’ murmurs grow loud again, so I throw up my hand at them as I call Peter.
“Robert?” Peter asks, as he answers his phone.
“Yeah, that’s us. Take the frontage road as you approach the airport, come through the gate, and park next to our Explorers. We’re on our way out to see you.”
I hang up and glare at my misfits. “Our camera tech has arrived. I’m sure with his input, we can figure it all out together.” I lead my parade back through the three sections of my DC-9 and down the back staircase. Tina keeps pace with me.
“You’re enjoying the chaos a little much, don’t you think?” she asks.
“It’s not chaos if I stay on top of it. And after two years of planning this, I want to enjoy every producing moment,” I say as I descend onto the tarmac.
Parked alongside our two black Explorers is a dust-covered Humvee straight out of Mad Max, tricked out with radio antennae, spare water, and fuel tanks. Peter steps out of the Humvee. He wears black boots, blue jeans, and a black t-shirt. He’s tall, tan, and bald, with gray eyebrows and a ring in his ear, like the Darth Vader version of Mr. Clean. Everyone gasps when he turns to face us. Peter has a long, jagged scar that runs from his forehead, across his eye, and down to his chin. The scar is gaping open, as if he’s just been sliced with a broken bottle. But instead of seeing raw red flesh underneath it, you see metal. Brushed medical-grade stainless steel is embedded in his skin. Peter looks like the Terminator with his metal skull exposed.
“What happened to your face?” Lionel asks.
“I sculpted it myself. It’s art.”
“You’re a body mod,” Kat says, impressed.
“That’s so cool,” Sydney says, even more impressed.
Everyone else just stares in shock, taking it all in.
“Peter, this is Kat, Sydney, Lionel, Hachiro, Katashi, Yoshi, Yuko, Jim, and Tina.”
Peter extends his hand when he hears Tina’s name. “Great to finally meet you, Tina.”
“And you as well, Peter. I love your work,” Tina says, shaking his hand.
My other eight misfits form a wide semicircle around Pe
ter, as if he might attack.
“Peter, do you think we can hardwire twenty cameras, with another six or more wearable GoPros transmitting Wi-Fi, plus audio to an encryptor and microwave transmitter attached to an antenna mounted on the bottom of the plane?”
Peter ponders my question for a bit before answering. “We can figure it out.”
Lionel blinks, too nervous to challenge him. “Okay,” he mutters in a low voice.
“Hachiro, can you give Lionel a third of the front storage space for his gear?” I ask.
“Hai,” Hachiro and his whole team say at once.
“When can your team start, Peter?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Anybody new since we last worked together?” Tina asks.
“One new hire,” Peter says.
“Got it. I’ll need his info for my security check,” Tina says.
This monster show is working, and my rush comes back, flooding my veins with happy juice. I clap my hands over my head. “Everyone! We’re going back to the office to finalize a game and broadcast system that kicks ass. Hachiro, at three p.m. we’re doing a secure video conference call with Boss Man and running through the game for him. Got it?”
“Hai,” Hachiro and his team all say.
“Amazing tech wizards, Lionel and Peter, the test flight is tomorrow afternoon. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to have all cameras. But we must send enough encrypted pristine signals to La Paz that will show we can pull this off. Got it?”
“You’ll have it,” Peter says. When he smiles, his facial skin stretches, showing more of the metal plate he has underneath. It looks like it hurts.
“Good. We’ll fly to our game location on Friday. That’s when the real buildout and rigging begins, and we work around the clock until showtime. Understand? Give me an Ooh Rah!”
“Ooh Rah!” Jim howls, and the rest of the team howls back. I have a show.
Chapter 36
* * *
Steven Quintana
Day 12: Wednesday Morning
Malibu, California
I’m in the bathroom of Rikki’s beach house, carving a hole in the sole of my right shoe with a steak knife until the slice is big enough for me to insert Julia’s black Am Ex card. It slides right in, and then I seal it shut with a thin line of glue to hide the hole. I put my shoe back on and bounce in place. It feels no different, but I feel a little less terrified about the insane trip I’m about to take.
It’s ten a.m. Wednesday morning. It feels weird to be back in the beach house. I exit the bathroom and find Glenn Ward waiting for me in the living room. The curtains are still drawn, and his music is still on the stereo. Julia paces in the kitchen behind him, sipping coffee.
Trishelle sits on the couch, hugging a blanket and staring at me, chin tilted up, as if she’s judging me. This is the first time I’ve seen her in six months. She’s skinnier than usual, and her face is gray. “Hi, Trishelle,” I say. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m a housebound agoraphobe, but I’m here for Julia, which is what matters.”
Glenn hands me a wallet. Inside is a driver’s license, social security card, library card, and Visa credit card—except I’m not Steven Quintana, I’m now Vic Lowry.
“You work fast,” I say as I slide the wallet into the breast pocket of my canvas jacket.
“I work for the NSA in the second-largest city in the country. I had to pull a lot of strings to get you a new identity in less than twenty-four hours. Memorize all your new digits.”
“You could be talking to Mendoza and Taylor right now, but you’re helping me. Why?”
“If I was talking to them, would you leave town and disappear again?”
“I’d already be gone.”
“Exactly. Carl Webb hired me to keep an eye on you and to keep you alive, and you’ve disappeared on me once already. This is the best way I know to keep you alive another week.”
“I like your attitude.”
He then hands me a new computer. “This has a remote Wi-Fi built in. It works in the middle of the desert, so you can research cameras as you drive to Arizona. You have nine hours to become the expert your new boss Peter Heyman expects you to be.”
“Less than that,” I say. “I’m supposed to call him in five hours so he can quiz me, and then he’s going to tell me where in Arizona we’re supposed to meet.”
“Can you take off your jacket and shirt please?” Glenn asks, holding up what looks like an electronic key fob crossed with a syringe.
“What’s that for?” I ask.
“It’s a tracking device. I’m going to inject it into your armpit. That way, we can monitor your movements and know your exact location. No more going off the radar.”
Taking off my jacket is easy, but pulling my shirt over my head still hurts. Stabbing pains shoot through my wounds as I reach bare skin. Glenn takes a step back and Trishelle gasps.
“Whoa,” Glenn says. “You have four volcanoes on your side.”
“I got shot less than two weeks ago, remember?”
Julia puts her hand over her mouth. “I think they’re infected.”
I walk to the long mirror near the entranceway. I’m still muscular, but I’ve lost tone in the last two weeks; I haven’t been exercising and my body has been burning calories to heal my injuries. I lift my arm and examine my wounds. It’s one gigantic purple bruise from my waist to my armpit, with four raised red and black scabs. I raise both arms and don’t feel teeth-chattering pain until my hands are directly over my head. Then it really hurts.
“They’re not infected,” I say, lowering my arms. “It’s just a lot of blood under my skin.”
“Are you sure you want to go like that?” Glenn asks.
“Dead sure. The scars remind me of how bad I want to stop those assholes.”
Julia’s mug slips from her hand and breaks on the hard floor. She grabs paper towels from the kitchen, wipes up her spilled coffee and throws the broken mug in the trash. She doesn’t say anything, but she throws the ceramic pieces hard enough to say she’s pissed.
“Lift your right arm,” Glenn says.
“Wait, not in my skin. What if they examine me?” I ask.
“Where else am I supposed to put it? We have to keep track of you.”
“Stick it on my clothes.”
“They could search your clothes, too.”
“They’re into skin, not clothes. Something tells me not to put it under my skin.” I pull my t-shirt back on. I hold up my brown canvas jacket. “Shoot it in here instead.”
“You better have a story that explains your wounds,” Glenn says. He finds the thickest part of the jacket’s inside seam and tags it. He checks his cellphone, then shows me the screen. It shows my GPS location, as if my jacket has its own monitoring satellite. “The power in that chip lasts two weeks. Just don’t lose that jacket.”
Trishelle leaves the couch and stands in the kitchen entrance with Julia. She hugs her.
“How long before you go?” Julia asks, as if Trishelle’s hug gave her the strength to ask.
“Le Clerq will be here at eleven,” I answer.
Julia and Trishelle both stare hard at me, their eyes glistening.
“I know that look. You want something.”
“I need you to explain something,” Julia says, crossing her arms.
I take Julia’s hand and pull her into the kitchen, away from Trishelle. Outside, it’s still overcast, with a thick enough fog that no one can see me from a boat offshore. The clock on the stove says it’s almost eleven. I want to leave before Carl arrives, and I can tell Julia’s regretting the deal we made. I run my thumb gently across her knuckles. “Ask away. No glib answers, I promise.”
“Why would these people hire you when they don’t even know you?”
“Peter Heyman lied to get hired. People do it all the time in Hollywood. Then you rush to become an expert by the time the job starts. He gambled and told Robert Snow that he knew everything
about broadcasting GoPro and CCTV cameras. But he doesn’t, because Le Clerq found out that Heyman was asking the tech guys at the camera company to help him. So, Le Clerq dropped a hint to the camera company that I’m an expert. The tech guys told Peter that he should hire me, which makes them look good, and they closed the sale. Now, I just have to convince Peter to believe the lies I’m telling him.”
“Fake it until you make it, huh?”
“You’ve done it yourself,” I say, tugging on the bottom of her oversized shirt.
“When?”
“You said you knew how to ride a horse to get that Texas movie. Then you crowded a month’s worth of riding lessons into a week.”
“You can learn to ride a horse in a week. You can’t become a technical TV expert in ten hours,” she says, pulling her shirt out of my hands.
“I don’t need to be an expert. I just need to know enough to ruin everything.”
“You have an answer for everything.” Julia turns to the window and stares out at the morning fog.
We made love Monday after our hike, but not since. I didn’t want her to see my wounds, so I kept the lights off. It was bittersweet. Afterward, there was a twinge of sadness mixed with the resentment and it’s still with us.
“The FBI, the LAPD, and Carl Webb himself are phoning and texting me. But I haven’t called them back because I’m keeping my promise,” Julia says. “But when they show up, I’ll tell them everything.”
“Do whatever you need to do. I understand.”
The front gate buzzes. I look at the monitor. It’s Le Clerq, in the front seat of his old Cadillac. I grab my backpack, knowing I won’t get a goodbye from her.
Trishelle grabs my arm before I leave the kitchen. “Don’t go. I was the one who convinced her you could survive anything. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
Glenn waits at the front door, my final obstacle. “We’ll be monitoring you on GPS. Once you’re in one spot long enough, don’t be surprised when you see the helicopters zooming down.”
“Thank you for finally helping me.” I shake his hand and walk out the door.