Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  “You know I’m all good, right?”

  I regretted saying it immediately. It was precisely the sort of thing someone only says when it’s the opposite of true.

  Patty gave me another quick look. Playing casual surprise. “Say what?”

  In for a penny. I kept going. “My head’s in this. I’ll take a break sometime, sure, but … y’know. I’m good.”

  “Okay,” she nodded. “Great.”

  Still, that dragging undertone. We ate in silence for another few moments, leaving me to ponder over how broken the ice I was standing on might be. Then she threw me for a loop.

  “I think I’m gonna let New Fish graduate.”

  “Oh, yeah?” She answered me with a nod. “Wow.”

  “We, uh.” She bit into her beef with gusto. “We did a little mano a mano a couple days back and I think—”

  “You guys hanging out now?”

  “Ha. Nah. But … he’s all right. Matt. Matt is all right.” She said your name like it was some foreign concept she was just starting to wrap her mind around.

  “Well,” I chuckled. “Good. Good to have all right guys on the team. I mean, when you have my spot, you’re gonna need guys like—”

  “Dak, I’m gonna stop you right there.”

  The worst part of keeping secrets: you’re always on edge, even when you’ve forgotten you’re keeping secrets. A flash of heat rippled through me as I tried to prepare for her to say …

  “You’re staying forever. Remember?”

  … something other than that. It was such a go-to standard in our usual repartee that hearing it now in the context of so much change and anxiety was like a drink of cool water.

  “Right,” I managed.

  “I thought we’d covered this: they offer to kick you up? You say nuh-uh. No way.”

  “It’d be good for you, though,” I found myself laughing. A genuine, surprised, breathy laugh.

  Patty kept a straight face. She finished up her jerky and moved on to one of her energy bars, this one slathered in chocolate. “No,” she said, quiet and straight. “It wouldn’t.”

  I felt a wave of … God, what do you even call it? Gratitude? Détente? Relief? Maybe there’s no real word for it. She was my deputy and I knew my back was secure on more fronts than perhaps I was aware. It was a good feeling.

  I went back to my food, which had somehow found its flavors again.

  “Joke about your stupid veggie lunch,” Patty muttered.

  “Joke about your stupid meat lunch,” I muttered back.

  “Taking your meat-lunch joke and making it dirty.”

  “Taking your dirty joke and making it dirtier.”

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT I watched you sleep, feeling my own pinballs ricocheting. It was our first night together we didn’t fuck—I didn’t lie outright, I told you I was too distracted about Lloyd, about the plan, to really be in the mood, and that was true to an extent … but it did mark the first time I felt like I was keeping something from you. The first little betrayal that all relationships have to walk over like cobblestones.

  A relationship? What is this? Who am I?

  I did make sure to warn you that Patty would start calling you “Matt” from here on. I couldn’t tell if you were glad or a little sad to be growing up—you received the news in an oddly distracted manner. Maybe you were feeling the edge of your own secrets underfoot.

  Eventually we fell asleep in each other’s arms. I managed to stay asleep for an hour or so. Now here I was, awake and staring.

  Am I the mark?

  What an absurd, idiotic question.

  Then why are you thinking it?

  Because I’m an absurd idiot. I wanted to shake you awake, interrogate you for—what? For being so good at lying to her, for sounding so sincere while spouting insincerities?

  Ping, my thoughts bouncing, ricocheting, chipping away.

  Was this … all some sort of con?

  Yes, I could hear your voice, here I am helping you engineer the theft of something epically classified in the hopes that some shitty click-trawler gives us enough money to run away from the punishment I wouldn’t even be facing if I hadn’t agreed to do this in the first place as a con.

  Good point, smartass.

  Ping. Ping. Like shrapnel.

  What was this feeling, then? Suspicion? Jealousy? Did I think you were lying to me like you lied to Patty? No. Not even in the slightest. Yet, still, I didn’t trust … anything about this. It wasn’t a “who.” It wasn’t even a “what.” It was all of this—a late-night, half-asleep amplification of all the insecurities I’d voiced that night we pored over our contracts. If my uncomfortable silence with Patty was Exhibit A for why I gladly signed away my fraternization rights, this, this stew, this swamp, this volcano of fear and worry inside my chest was Exhibits B–Z.

  Ping.

  I thought of the word “love” and all its infinite groanings. Wondered if I could actually say the word to you, on purpose, with all the intent it demanded. I had seen so many things in my life, but with this I was a baby.

  The room started to feel very hot.

  That’s why I can’t sleep. The room is just hot.

  Ping.

  And I’m just stressed and anxious.

  That was all this was. Just a physical response to emotional overload. There was nothing to really worry about. Just needed to tire myself out a little. So I got up and paced. Thinking you were asleep, but never truly sure if you weren’t watching me through barely slitted eyes.

  16

  THE DIFFERENCE between a soldier and a civilian is when the internal question Are we really doing this? arises, the soldier simply answers, Yes. It’s not that the doubt isn’t there. It’s that the doubt has learned its place: as an observer with no veto power. Orders are followed, missions are kept, no matter how doubtful they might feel.

  Two days later, finally, at the prescribed time, I waited in the parking lot of an abandoned car wash. It was two towns over, a location I’d just happened to have noticed once when I was on a meditative drive, headed nowhere in particular. When I passed the place I remembered thinking, That looks like where a doomed deal would go down in like a Tom Waits song or something. How quickly our jokes become prophesies when the chips are down, huh?

  The sky was slate gray and heavy with an impending downpour. One of those days where you want to curl up next to a sunlamp and … well, listen to Tom Waits sing about doomed deals in abandoned car washes.

  Are we really doing this?

  Yes.

  I was standing outside, under the awning for what used to be the waiting room, wearing my mask and hood. Next to me was the cavernous mouth leading into what used to be the conveyor-belt carnival ride of the car wash proper. We’d gotten here early just to scope out the place, make sure there were no possums or derelicts using the place as real estate. All was clear. You were standing off to the side, just around the corner of the entrance to the parking lot, in jeans and a ratty T-shirt, a nondescript baseball cap pulled over your head. I looked at you with two pairs of eyes: an objective pair that was impressed at how seamlessly you were able to blend into the surroundings, as inconspicuous as a road sign. Even if anyone did notice you, you looked exactly like the kind of person who might be seen around a place like this: rooting through weeds, barely more than set dressing, there but for the grace of God go I.

  And I had another pair of eyes too: a pair that knew you, knew what you were up to, and thought they’d never seen anything as gorgeous before in all their years of seeing.

  The reporter didn’t appear to notice you as she drove past you and into the lot. I could tell by the hesitant way she was driving that she wasn’t quite sure she’d remembered the address right. But she made her way to the parking spot farthest from the road and her car gave the tiniest of lurches as she put it in park. You gave me the all-clear from your position and I walked straight up to the car, ready to slide into the backseat.

  The fucking
back door was locked. I knocked on the window, keeping an eye out for any unlucky passersby who might see me while I was stuck standing there like an asshole.

  “UNLOCK IT NOW!”

  The driver’s side window scooted down a crack. Her voice, nervously from within:

  “A-are you—?”

  “NO, I’M THE OTHER PERSON YOU KNOW WHO SOUNDS LIKE THIS. DO IT NOW.”

  The door unlocked and I got in, pulling it shut behind me.

  * * *

  “SEE THAT STALL OVER THERE? TAKE US THERE.”

  She drove us to the stall where they used to towel dry cars after they’d made it through the Tunnel of Love, then put the car in park. “I’m assuming they don’t still wash cars here,” she muttered. Trying to find her sea legs, unsure of just how nervous she should be.

  “NO. CLOSED FOR YEARS. TURN OFF THE CAR.”

  She did.

  “NOW TAKE OUT YOUR PHONE AND TURN THE FLASHLIGHT FUNCTION ON.”

  “Flashlight? It’s not that dark, just a little cloudy—”

  “IT’S GONNA BE DARK IN LESS THAN A MINUTE.”

  “But it’s only like—”

  And there you were, right on time. You walked to the car with unbroken purpose and threw the tarp over us in a motion so smooth it was like the world’s fastest total eclipse.

  She screamed.

  “I TOLD YOU TO TURN YOUR FLASHLIGHT ON.”

  “This is too—this is too much—I’m getting out!” I heard her scrambling for her seatbelt, for the door.

  “DO YOU KNOW WHAT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT TARP NOW?”

  Silence. “N-no.”

  “DO YOU REALLY WANT TO FIND OUT?”

  Also, I didn’t say it but thought wryly, if you’ve ever tried to get out from under a tarp while stressed, any illusions of a quick and easy getaway are dispelled pretty damn quick.

  She stayed where she was. Smart.

  “TURN YOUR PHONE FLASHLIGHT ON.”

  “Gimme a second, I’m…” I heard her fishing around. Then the glaring white spray of her phone’s light burst through the darkness. “… Okay.”

  “BETTER, RIGHT?”

  “I feel like this is unnecessarily frightening.”

  It was a really old tarp. From the street it should give the impression it was just covering an abandoned shit-heap. But she didn’t need to know that. I wanted her a little scared.

  “JUST PRETEND WE’RE AT THE MOVIES. THIS IS BETTER WITHOUT A GLARE.”

  “What is?”

  I hit play on the tablet she didn’t even realize I was holding.

  * * *

  IT TOOK close to half an hour to get through the first several angles. We watched in silence—the video itself had no sound and Monica was rapt.

  While she watched I sent you a quick text: All clear?

  You responded: Ghost town.

  I found myself wondering if Monica would have the same dream the rest of us did after our first day at Quill. It was one of the rare bits of empathetic small talk we’d all allowed ourselves while conscientiously trying to avoid becoming friends. Obviously, we didn’t want to get to know each other too well, but we could talk about shared experiences on the job and this was one of the weirder ones: that dream of hurtling through space, not knowing who or what you were, right after learning, conclusively, that aliens existed. Anyone I’d ever spoken to about it at Quill had admitted to having that same dream. Although, I realized suddenly … in the rush of all that had happened, I’d never asked you.

  I’ll ask him about it tonight. When we’re celebrating.

  I smiled a little bit behind my mask.

  “This footage,” Monica finally spoke up, her throat sounding very dry. “Why is there so … much?”

  “THIS IS ALL RAW FOOTAGE USED TO CREATE HOLOGRAMS FOR BRIEFINGS.”

  “Holograms? Why—?”

  “’CAUSE…” That was actually a decent question. “WHO CARES?”

  “Seems expensive.” Jesus Christ, reporters …

  “IT’S NOT TAXPAYER MONEY.”

  “Well, a lot of taxpayer money does get funneled into Sierra, th—”

  “STOP. I DON’T CARE.” I really, really didn’t.

  She kept watching, rewinding, pausing. After a few more minutes of total silence:

  “I mean, this is … I mean, this is obviously … I…”

  “YOU’VE NEVER FELT SMALLER IN THE UNIVERSE, I KNOW—WILL YOUR PEOPLE PAY THE TEN MILLION OR NOT?”

  I expected “Of course,” or “Are you kidding?” or, at the very least, “Five million, final offer.” What I got was … nothing.

  “OKAY, YES AND NO ARE BOTH PRETTY EASY WORDS.”

  She put the tablet down and picked up her phone/flashlight.

  “So … here’s the thing—”

  “DON’T POINT THAT IN MY FACE.”

  “Sorry.” She moved the stark circular glow away from me. Everything in the car took on an almost black-and-white vibe. Like one of those films where things discussed in the shadows start going disastrously wrong.

  “WHAT COULD BE ‘THE THING’? THAT’S AN ALIEN.”

  “It definitely looks like an alien. I’m inclined to believe it’s an alien.”

  “YOU THINK ALL OF THAT WAS A GUY IN A SUIT?”

  “No,” she considered. “No, one thing it clearly isn’t is a guy in a suit. And it’s not a mannequin, or a, I don’t know, like a sculpture, or, what do they call them, a maquette.”

  “YOU’RE RIGHT. IT’S NOT THOSE THINGS. I WOULD KNOW BECAUSE I WORK WITH IT EVERY DAY.”

  “Okay, okay, but back off for a second while I tell you what I’m dealing with here.”

  I wasn’t here to talk about feelings or dilemmas. “WILL YOUR PEOPLE PAY OR NOT.”

  “My ‘people’ have in fact said they would meet your price, no questions asked. For indisputable proof,” she said. She was finding her sea legs, all right. “In fact they agreed so fast it made me think you should’ve asked for more.”

  “I DON’T NEED MORE, I JUST NEED WHAT I NEED.”

  “But here’s what’s gonna happen when I go back to them with this.” She put her phone/light on the passenger seat, facing up toward the ceiling, and picked up the tablet again to cycle through the footage. “There’s gonna be a whole conversation about the ramifications of releasing this, what’ll happen after it’s out. ’Cause a company like Sierra is like—I mean, they’re an octopus, you know that, right?”

  Of course I fucking knew that.

  “What I’m saying is, when a company like that does damage control, they do damage control. You must’ve seen this in action. They don’t just rebut the story, they obliterate the story.

  They demolish its credibility from every conceivable angle. My editors, my publishers, they’re gonna have a long speculative conversation about all the ways Sierra might respond. ’Cause if you’ve brought me a fake, they’ll laugh it off, at most give a few curated tours of Quill Marine to prove it isn’t there.”

  I felt rage boiling. “YOU SERIOUSLY THINK I FAKED THIS?”

  “To fake this, you would need the most expensive CGI or prosthetic people in the business.”

  “RIGHT, AND GUESS WHAT, I DON’T HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY.”

  “But Sierra does.” I started to protest and the bitch had gotten confident enough to talk right over me. “If this is fake, that’s one thing. If it’s real, that’s when they’ll really go to war. They’ll attack everyone at 9Source, which, whatever, that’s just the game, but—where they’ll really focus their effort is on making this story totally worthless to us. Here’s what I think they’d do: I said CGI and makeup, right? Sierra will do one of each. They’ll hire a top CGI team to make an alien, and they’ll hire a top Hollywood practical effects team to make another alien, and I guarantee you they’ll both look as good as the one in this video. You know them better than I do: does what I’m saying sound like a reach?” She gave me a moment to respond. I let it pass. “I’m guessing that’s a no. At which point we�
��ve paid ten million for the cover of the Weekly World News.”

  Finally, I gathered whatever reserves I had to not explode.

  “DO YOU … DO YOU HAVE ANY GODDAMN IDEA WHAT WE’VE RISKED TO—”

  “I’m sure it’s awful,” and holy fuck it sounded like she really sympathized.

  “YOU SAT RIGHT THERE AND MADE A DEAL WITH ME—”

  “The deal was for indisputable proof. That’s not what this is,” she said. She passed the tablet back to me over the seats. “This is what life is like now: if it’s on tape, it’s fake until proven real. You should know that.”

  “WHAT THE HELL ELSE DO YOU EXPECT FROM ME.” I hated how weak, how desperate I sounded, even amid the dehumanizing buzz of the face mask.

  She turned around to face me, propping both arms over the inside shoulders of the front seats. In the demented, campfire glow of the upturned flashlight I could see that she was smiling.

  “Is there any way you can bring us the, uh, the specimen? The alien? Or, or, even part of it?”

  You must be out of your goddam mind, I thought. Somehow she heard me.

  “Here’s the thing: I believe you. I believe I’m looking at the biggest story since there have ever been stories. I’m not asking, ‘Would it be difficult?’ I’m asking … is there any way at all? Because it would be worth it.”

  I hated the look on her face. It was so conspiratorial, so cheap. But I also couldn’t think of any arguments against what she was proposing—besides the obvious, of course.

  “THE PLACE IS LIKE … I’D HAVE TO BE ABLE TO WALK THROUGH WALLS AND THAT STILL WOULDN’T BE GOOD ENOUGH.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am. Maybe you can take it somewhere else and get a different answer. But I really, really don’t think you will. And who knows, it’s probably for the best. Sierra’s an octopus, right? I don’t even know where a person could run.”

  * * *

  AFTER SHE drove away, you and I folded up the tarp together. Like the world’s biggest, dirtiest American flag being presented at a funeral. I had given you the rundown as best as I could. I conveyed the facts; I don’t know if I did justice to the humiliation.