The Twin Powers

by Robert Lipsyte

  AGENT Quinn had left all the lights on and turned some awful music on full blast. I couldn’t doze with the lights so bright and the music ricocheting off the walls. I didn’t even recognize the music, it was so loud. It made my head feel like a punching bag. A little nap was all I needed so I could think.

  I kept chanting, Be strong. I’d read that prisoners of war did that to keep their spirits up. I knew what the agents were doing to me. Depriving a person of sleep is the most effective torture of all.

  I had no idea how much time had passed before Agent Quinn came back into the room with a woman who was also wearing a dark suit and a white shirt, but no tie.

  Agent Quinn turned down the sound. “This is Agent Mathison, Todd. She’s been talking to Alessa.”

  “She okay?” I said.

  “She’s taking care of herself,” said Agent Mathison. She had a nasty edge to her voice that reminded me of the serrated blade of a bread knife. I’d cut myself once with a bread knife. Stitches. I tried to use the memory of the pain to cut through my fogginess.

  “You paying attention?” said Agent Quinn.

  I wasn’t. I was drifting away, my mind bobbing in the sleepless sea.

  “You better start taking care of yourself, Todd,” said Agent Mathison. “She told us all about Tom.”

  “What about Tom?”

  “I’m asking the questions,” snapped Agent Mathison. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “When he took off after Ronnie.”

  “Did you see him when he came back?”

  “He didn’t come back. At least not before you kidnapped us.”

  “It’s not a kidnap when federal officers detain you,” said Agent Quinn.

  “What kind of federal officers?”

  “No time for that. Millions could die.”

  “Die? How?”

  Agent Mathison turned to Agent Quinn. “Turn up the sound and let’s get out of here. Far as I’m concerned, he’s a terrorist and can stay in this room until his head explodes.”

  “I understand your feelings, Agent Mathison,” said Agent Quinn, “but Todd is a good person who wants to do the right thing. Let’s give him a chance.”

  Good cop, bad cop. How old is that? I thought. But I was glad Agent Quinn was in the room. Agent Mathison scared me.

  “Okay,” she said. “One chance.” She turned her sharp face back to me. “Is Tom an alien?”

  Don’t lie; don’t tell the truth. How did you do that?

  “No,” I said. He’s a half alien. So I wasn’t technically lying.

  “I’m done here,” said Agent Mathison. “You can baby-sit him if you like, but he’s no good to us.”

  “Then let me go.” I hated the whine in my voice.

  “Too late for that,” said Agent Mathison.

  Agent Quinn looked unhappy. As he followed Agent Mathison out the door, he cranked up the sound.

  Twenty-eight

  RONNIE

  SOMEWHERE IN NEW JERSEY

  2012

  KEITH—the Lump—walked into the warehouse alone.

  “Hiya, Ronnie.” I wondered how he knew my name, then remembered being questioned by the agents. That was about all they found out—my name. And Buddy’s.

  “Hey, Buddy.” Keith waved a greasy bag of McDonald’s food in one hand and a bag of dog treats in the other. I had to hold Buddy by the collar to keep him from running over to Keith.

  Behind Keith, through the open door, I could see the agents.

  Keith had one of those friendly, ugly faces that made you want to like him. He was big and his plaid shirt and jeans were wrinkled. There were tiny bits of food in his red beard. I could see why Tom called him the Lump.

  He set the McDonald’s bag down next to me. “May I give Buddy a treat?”

  I nodded. He held out a cookie shaped like a cat. Buddy took it gently and Keith patted his head.

  “So, where is he?”

  “Who?” I’ve got to stall as long as I can, I thought, so Tom can figure out how to get away.

  “For his sake, Ronnie, tell me where he is. You know what those agents are like. The guys outside want to tear-gas the place. I don’t want Tom to get hurt.”

  “Since when?”

  “I’ve always liked him. He was the one who didn’t like me. He thought I was his stepmom’s boyfriend.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “I was just a tenant, helping her pay the mortgage after her husband died.” He smiled at me. His teeth were yellow and crooked.

  “That’s not true, Keith.”

  “You’re pretty smart, Ronnie.” He got so close that I could smell french fries on his breath. He was looking at me so carefully, I got nervous.

  “You’re some kind of cop.”

  “True. I work for a federal agency that searches for extraterrestrial life. I monitor interplanetary chatter. I was in Tom’s house because I knew he was in contact with another planet.”

  “Really? Tom?” I pretended to be surprised. I’ve got to keep him talking, I thought. I remembered that Eddie had liked Keith. They had watched baseball together. “Tom said he watched baseball with you.”

  “He remembered that? Yeah, it was a good time. He seemed different.”

  No kidding, Sherlock. That had been Eddie, not Tom. “Like how?”

  Keith pushed his red whiskers even closer. “You ever get the feeling he’s two different people?”

  “Like a split personality?”

  “Exactly.”

  I heard a voice in my head that sounded like Tom’s. Don’t let him know we’re twins.

  When I nodded at Keith, I almost brushed his whiskers because he was leaning in so close. “I heard he had to take some pills for his behavior. Maybe that made him act different.”

  Keith pulled back and scratched his whiskers. “That might do it. By the way, where did you hear that?”

  I felt a fluttering in my stomach. Uh-oh. Had to be careful here. “I don’t know.”

  “Kids in school?”

  “Could be.”

  “How could that be, Ronnie? You never went to Tom’s school.”

  I just shrugged.

  “So who are you, Ronnie? While we had you, we ran your prints and pictures. It’s like you don’t exist on this planet.”

  When you’re lying, it always helps to tell a little bit of the truth. “I’m a runaway. Homeless.”

  Keith smiled. “Even a homeless kid leaves some kind of footprint on his planet.”

  Tom’s voice again in my head. Careful. He’s closing in.

  I liked the idea that Tom was still looking out for me.

  “How’d you smash those windows and escape?” said Keith.

  “What do you think?” Still stalling. It wasn’t the coolest thing to say.

  “I think whoever we’re looking for sent you down to make contact with Tom. But why?”

  I shrugged.

  I’m coming back, I heard in my mind. You can’t face this alone.

  “We need to find that out, Ronnie. By any means possible.”

  I felt chilled. Eventually, they were going to find out the truth about everything. I started to panic.

  “Where is Tom?” Keith asked again.

  “Right behind you, Lump,” said Tom.

  Keith smiled and turned around. “As expected, the hero returns.”

  Twenty-nine

  EDDIE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  2012

  I FELT like a prisoner. It was my own fault. I had let it happen. I remembered when Hercules had said that my elevator didn’t go to the top floor. It had stung, but then I’d flushed it out of my head, like the memory of an intercepted pass. Coach always says you can’t dwell on the negative because that will drag you down.

  Coach says. Coach says. It was always somebody else says, somebody else telling me what to do. Coach. Dad. Grandpa. Tom. Erin. I had thought it was a good thing to be coachable, good that I listened to people and let them help me improve. Wasn’
t it? A lot of players insist on doing things their way, and most of the time they don’t improve on their own. They drop off the team.

  Tom isn’t coachable—he’s always talking back, questioning, doing everything his way as though he knows better. Maybe he does know better. At least he isn’t a puppet.

  What would Tom do in my place now?

  What a joke. They think you’re Tom, but they want you to act like Eddie. You want to act like Tom, but you’re still Eddie. Maybe it was time to be the Eddie whose elevator goes to the top.

  When Erin showed up that morning to take me to an interview, I told her I wanted to see Grandpa and my friends.

  She sighed and shook her head. “It’s not a good time to hang out at the wagon.”

  “Why can’t they come visit me here?”

  “They all went home. They were uncomfortable in the wagon.”

  “So get them hotel rooms too,” I said.

  Erin sighed more deeply. “I hate to tell you this,” she said, “but they’re jealous of you getting all the attention.”

  “So let them come on stage with me. I’d like that.”

  “The truth is,” said Erin, “they were homesick and bored of the tour. They wanted to get back to school, to their lives. They really weren’t committed to the tour.”

  Too many different answers. I wondered what was true. I wished I could look into her mind.

  Could I? I stared at Erin’s forehead as if I were looking for a hole between blitzing linebackers. Nothing. I remembered a TV show where the cops slipped a skinny wire with a tiny TV camera at its tip under a door and got to see what was going on in the bad guy’s room.

  I imagined slipping a tiny microphone up Erin’s nose and into her brain.

  I heard static!

  And then, This nimbot is getting to be a pain. Where is Keith?

  Her phone rang and she turned away. “There you are. We’re ready . . . That long?”

  She turned back to me and gave me a phony smile. “Someone’s coming—an old friend of yours.”

  Keith? The guy Tom called the Lump! Tom thought he might be some kind of government agent—when the Lump had been living in Tom’s house, he’d always been working on computers in the basement. I’d gotten along with him because we were both Yankees fans, but if he came here, he might figure out that there are two of us.

  “Old friend? Groovy,” I said. I made myself smile at Erin. “Who?”

  “A surprise.”

  I could blow up the TV like I had done back on EarthTwo, bust out of the room and try to escape, but there were all those Browns out there and everyone knew who I was. I needed Hercules. But I was on my own.

  I got the microphone back up her nose. This time, I tried to push a thought into her mind. Erin is sooo nice.

  She smiled at me. I thought I heard So sweet and pathetically dumb.

  Think so? I’m sooo hungry.

  “You look hungry. Want something while we’re waiting?”

  “Like you were reading my mind, Erin.”

  She picked up the phone and ordered a hamburger, fries, and soda. I was sick of that stuff, but I just nodded and smiled harder.

  When the knock and the call of “Room service!” came, Erin was texting and didn’t seem to notice. One of the Browns opened the door so a waiter could push his cart into the room.

  I imagined sticking a straw into the Brown’s ear and whispering, Waiter’s got a gun.

  “GUN!” yelled the Brown, just like in the cop shows.

  He tackled the waiter. The cart rolled across the room into Erin.

  I opened the hotel room door wider and yelled, “GUN!”

  As the Browns in the hall rushed into the room, I jumped out, slammed the door, raced to the stairway, and plunged down the steps.

  In the lobby, I imagined a fog so thick that no one could see me. I walked through it, bumping into people, saying I was sorry, until I went through the hotel’s revolving doors.

  The fog didn’t follow me outside. I was on the sidewalk. People were waving at me. “Way to go, Tom . . . We love you, Tom . . .”

  “Stop right there, Tom!” Browns were pouring out the revolving door behind me.

  More were coming at me from across the street. I was trapped.

  Then I heard a familiar voice.

  Hop on, Eddie.

  Thirty

  ALESSA

  SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA

  2012

  “TAKE your clothes off,” said Agent Mathison.

  “What?” I wasn’t sure what I had heard.

  “You heard me.”

  I didn’t want to hear it. My mind turned off. My ears filled with static.

  “Strip!” The word cut through the static.

  No way, I thought. You can kill me.

  “I’ll do it myself, then.” Agent Mathison pushed up the sleeves of her black suit jacket.

  Don’t care what you do. Not going to happen. I wrapped my arms around myself. I was wearing jeans and a black Tech Off! hoodie over a black Tech Off! T-shirt. I always try to wear black. I think it makes me look thinner.

  “You want me to call Agent Quinn in here to help me take your clothes off?”

  I imagined the two agents ripping my clothes off. As hard as I struggled, I’d be no match for the two of them. Both bigger and stronger. Probably trained to do this. The thought of Agent Quinn seeing me naked sent an icicle down my back.

  Agent Mathison opened the door and waved Agent Quinn in. He’d been standing right outside, waiting.

  “We need to make sure you aren’t packing anything, Alessa,” said Agent Quinn.

  Agent Mathison cackled. “Can’t imagine what she could hide under all that flab.”

  In a kindly voice, Agent Quinn said, “It’s routine, Alessa.”

  I took a deep breath. “If it’s so routine, how come you didn’t do it right off?”

  “We thought you’d be cooperative,” said Agent Quinn. “We didn’t think we’d have to treat you like a suspect.”

  “Suspect of what?”

  “No time for your questions,” said Agent Mathison. “Take. Off. Your. Clothes.”

  I didn’t move. Couldn’t move. I was frozen. I already felt naked. There was water in my eyes. Don’t cry, Lessi. Hang in there.

  “I’m losing patience,” said Agent Mathison, tapping the toe of her black boot.

  “Maybe we need a little more understanding here,” said Agent Quinn. “It’s not that Alessa is being unpatriotic or criminal. She’s hung up on body-image issues.”

  Good cop.

  “She’s just fat,” said Agent Mathison.

  Bad cop.

  “She’s not totally comfortable in her skin,” said Agent Quinn.

  Good cop.

  “There’s so much of it,” said Agent Mathison.

  Bad cop.

  Go ahead, I thought. You think I haven’t heard all of this before?

  “Her feelings make her do things against her better nature,” said Agent Quinn. “Such as protecting Tom.”

  “Being a tub of lard is no excuse for endangering the nation,” said Agent Mathison. “And the jury won’t think so either.”

  I was cold and hot. I sucked for breath. The arms I had wrapped around myself were the only things keeping me from falling apart. My fingers dug into my rolls of flesh. Stay tough. If they keep you here and starve you, Lessi, you’ll wake up skinny.

  If you come out alive.

  “Maybe she’s hiding information about Tom in all that blubber,” said Agent Mathison. “A thumb drive, notes—who knows? We better check.”

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” said Agent Quinn. “But how about one more chance. I know she wants to do the right thing.”

  “Okay,” said Agent Mathison. “Explain this, Alessa. You say Tom didn’t come back after going after Ronnie. But you say you saw him give his speech. How’s that possible?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She doesn’t want to tell us,” s
aid Agent Quinn.

  “Let her starve!” screamed Agent Mathison. She turned away.

  “Wait.” It just came out of me. “There are two of them. They’re twins.”

  “No wonder we didn’t have a fix,” said Agent Quinn. “Better call this in, pronto.”

  “First, we shake out the other loser,” said Agent Mathison.

  They walked out. I felt like a puddle of fat.

  Thirty-one

  BRITZKY

  SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA

  2012

  “TOUGH guy peed his pants,” said Agent Mathison.

  “Understandable, the jam he’s in,” said Agent Quinn.

  “Your fat friend tells us Tom is working with the aliens,” said Agent Mathison. “You can confirm that and maybe save your pathetic yellow-stained self, or you can continue to play tough and suffer the consequences.”

  What consequences, I thought. I’m thirteen years old. What can they do to me?

  “Don’t think,” said Agent Quinn in his phony sympathetic voice, “that being a kid protects you from consequences. In war, kids suffer worse than grownups. And we consider this a war. You’re not going to walk away.”

  “Oh, he’ll walk, all right,” said Agent Mathison. “After we release him in a few months, he’ll walk right into a juvenile facility. Those gangbangers love tough guys with zits who pee in their pants.”

  “So tell us,” said Agent Quinn. “Did Alessa tell us the truth? Is Tom in contact with the aliens? Because if she didn’t . . .” He looked at Agent Mathison, who gave him her nasty smile.

  I took a deep breath—I couldn’t help myself. Poor Lessi. She must have figured it didn’t matter if she told them. They’d probably figured it out anyway. Okay, tell them what they already know. No more.

  “It’s true.”

  “Where are they?” said Agent Mathison.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “When is the last time you saw an alien?”

  “If Hercules was an alien, then the last time I saw one was when he showed up at school.”

  “That’s what Alessa said too,” said Agent Quinn, smiling at him. “We’re going to turn off the lights and music and let you nap for a while.”