by Allen Zadoff
The cards shuffle.
I arrange a hand of ten cards, a phone number’s worth, and I click DEAL.
The computer opens a connection to an anonymous server. My voice is converted to a digital signal, chopped up into packets, sent across the Web, and reassembled.
A complex process that takes no more than a second.
One beep tone, and a woman answers.
“Hello, Mom,” I say.
That’s what I call this woman. Mother. The woman who is in charge of everything. Father runs my assignments. Mother oversees.
Mother and Father. That’s how I refer to the people who manage me. We do it for security purposes. If for some reason our secure line were breached, you’d hear nothing but a mother talking to her son.
Her son.
That’s what she calls me.
“Sweetheart,” the voice on the phone says. She sounds like a person who’s happy to get my call. “I heard about the game from your father.”
“Then you know I won,” I say.
“I do.”
“But there were—complications. Afterward, I mean.”
Silence.
“Four troublemakers,” I say. “Unexpected.”
“To you. Not to me.”
I’m glad she knew about the Chinese spies but troubled by the fact that I didn’t. Could I have missed something?
“Can you tell me anything else about who they were?” I say. “It might help me do a better job next time.”
“I was told they were spectators at the game, and they wandered onto the field. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“So there’s nothing to worry about?”
“Nothing at all,” Mother says.
“I’m relieved,” I say.
Traffic zooms by on the Pike. I look across the road at a giant billboard. A smiling family sits at a kitchen table eating dinner.
Home is where the is.
That’s what the sign says. The heart has steam wafting from the top.
It makes no sense to me.
I study it for a moment, trying to understand the meaning.
“You won your game,” Mother says. “That’s what matters. Your father and I are very proud of you.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely,” she says.
Proud.
It’s nice to hear. It means I’ve done my job well, completed another assignment. I was even able to adjust to unforeseen circumstances at the end.
I’m good at what I do, and I’m appreciated for it. So why is there a question nagging at me?
When does it end?
That’s what I want to know.
My life is one continual assignment. I move from world to world as I’ve been trained to do, leaving nothing but bodies behind me. With each assignment comes new challenges, new complications, new excitement.
You have a gift. That’s what Mother once told me. She said she saw it in me the first day we met.
I’m lucky that way. How many sixteen-year-olds know who they are or what they’re supposed to be doing in the world?
Yet with all I know and all I’ve been taught, still the question comes:
When does it end?
I think about promises that were made. The lies I was told.
No, I correct myself. Not lies.
Promises that I misunderstood.
I was young then. How could I have known?
CHAPTER TEN
MIKE PUT ME IN THE TAXI.
I do not remember the ride.
Mike had drugged me. Drugged me but not killed me. He could have done either. I know that now. It was simply a matter of which syringe he chose. One click is death. Two clicks is temporary coma.
I woke up in a beautiful bedroom with sunlight streaming through the window.
I yawned and stretched, thinking it was vacation, and we were in the house in South Carolina that my father rented for a month every summer.
I looked out the window at a forest I did not recognize.
This wasn’t South Carolina.
Memories flooded back, rising up from my narcotic haze.
My father taped to the chair. The look of terror in his eyes.
I ran to the bedroom door.
It was locked.
I screamed.
I flung myself against it.
I ran to the window, and it, too, was locked.
I tried to crack the glass, but it was unbreakable.
I screamed some more. I flung myself against walls. I destroyed furniture.
Eventually the door opened.
The woman I would later know as Mother stood there calmly looking at me.
“Where are my parents?” I said.
“Dead.”
That was the first word I ever heard out of her mouth. I didn’t know that death would become the basis of our relationship.
She sat me down, and she gave me a choice. I could join my parents, or I could join her. Join The Program.
That’s what she called it. The Program.
She described it to me in the most basic terms. I would become a soldier. I would be trained physically and mentally. I would do things most boys do only in video games.
She made it sound exciting.
She said it was my choice whether to join.
Whatever I decided, my life was no longer my own. I could give it up forever and join my parents, or I could join The Program.
Twelve years old, and I had to make a choice between life and death.
I chose death.
Call it loyalty. Call it naïveté.
I wanted to be with my parents, even if it meant dying.
So this is what I told her:
“Kill me.”
Ironically, it was what they were looking for. It showed them the level of character they were seeking, the list of personality characteristics appropriate to a potential soldier.
Intensity.
Black-or-white thinking.
Stubbornness.
Allegiance without regard to consequence.
All useful qualities from their perspective. They took my allegiance and transformed it into something that would serve them.
Serve The Program.
Mother promised me a new life.
That’s what I got.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I CAN HEAR MOTHER BREATHING ON THE OTHER END OF THE PHONE.
“Are you there?” she says.
“I’m here.”
“I said we’re proud of you.”
“I appreciate that.”
It’s my cue. I’m supposed to say good-bye and hang up, but I don’t.
The silence on the line grows uncomfortable.
“Anything else, honey?” the voice says.
There is an edge to it now.
When? my head screams.
“Nothing else,” I say. “I’m just anxious to get to the next assignment.”
The question goes away when I get an assignment. The question, the memories, all of it.
“Keep an eye on your e-mail,” Mother says. “Your father is sending you something.”
That’s how the assignments come. Through Father.
“I’ll get it soon?”
“You know your father. He moves at his own pace.”
“Of course.”
“You’re sure you’re okay?” she says.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
The briefest of pauses, and Mother says, “I have to run now. Lots of love.”
“Love you. Talk to you soon,” I say.
Back to the script. When in doubt, stick to the script.
The line goes dead.
I close the Poker app.
On the billboard the mother smiles warmly behind perfectly made-up lips. Her son lifts a spoonful of hot liquid to his mouth. She looks on proudly.
Home is where the is.
Home. Is that what home looks like?
I stare at the billboard.
Suddenly the meaning becomes clear.
There is nothing deep about it. It’s an ad for soup.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WAITING.
That is the most difficult part.
There is the assignment I have finished, and the assignment to come. In between is a black hole called waiting.
I cannot go back to Natick now. The house where I lived has already been sanitized, and the story of why I had to leave has been seeded. I was living there alone for two months while my parents were on an extended business trip.
That was the establishing story.
There was a terrible accident overseas. I had to leave without notice.
That’s the exit story.
Now it’s time to change cities and wait. In this case, the black hole is called Providence.
I travel by train whenever possible. It’s slow and old-fashioned, but that can work in my favor. Lax security, no ID checks, and it’s easy to buy a ticket under an assumed name. Besides, I enjoy it. I feel safest encased in metal and in motion.
I take the Acela Express train and in less than an hour I’m checking into the Marriott in downtown Providence. A hotel can be tricky when you’re sixteen years old. I have adult IDs and credit cards, but I have to be careful with my choice of clothes. I can’t walk in looking like a teenager. There will be questions.
They don’t care about me. They care about the room. They’re afraid a teenager will have a party and trash it. He’ll get drunk and pass out, and they’ll have a liability issue.
Sometimes I’ll call ahead and reserve the room for my son, but that requires a story, and stories invite attention.
Stories can be remembered. A regular check-in cannot.
So I keep it standard as much as possible. Big cities are best. Chains are best. Clubs are best. I’m a Marriott Rewards member under ten names.
I walk toward the front desk. A large group stands around in front of the restaurant, an eclectic mix of people from their twenties to their fifties, excited and chattering. They have that happy look like they’ve been sprung from prison.
I glance at the conference announcements.
WELCOME, LIBRARIANS! one of the signs reads.
“Are you one of us?” a well-dressed woman with funky glasses says.
“Wish I was,” I say.
That earns me a big smile.
I walk to the front desk and pass the clerk my credit card. She swipes it and slides it toward me on the counter.
“Welcome back, Mr. Gallant,” the clerk says.
She glances at me. A questioning look. Aren’t you a little young to be Mr. Gallant?
A kid would say, Mr. Gallant is my father. Try to prove he’s cool.
“A pleasure to be back,” I say. Act older. Look older.
“Will it be a long stay?”
“If I’m lucky, it will be a short one,” I say.
“Maybe you’ll find something in Providence you like.”
She smiles at me, and I look at her closely for the first time—dark hair, smoky eyes, and a black fitted uniform that can’t hide a great body underneath.
We might have fun together, but I can’t afford the distraction. Instead of taking advantage of the opening she’s given me, I make light of it.
“Is there anything in Providence that anyone likes?” I say.
She laughs.
“You should know you’re insulting my hometown,” she says.
“Looks like I just got a room with a view of the parking lot.”
I put the focus back on the room, the check-in process.
Business. That’s all this is.
“I’m not like that,” she says.
She types on the computer for a second. She glances up at me.
“Truth is we’ve got a lot of great things to do in this town. If you’re interested, I could show you a few of the hot spots.”
Changing the subject didn’t work. It’s time to be direct.
“I’m interested,” I say, “but I don’t have time. It’s just a quick business trip.”
“That’s a shame.”
“It really is.”
She passes me a small paper envelope with my key card.
“Room seven fifty-nine. A nice view. I guarantee it.”
“Thank you.”
I don’t look at her name tag. Better not to say her name. Better not to create any more connection between us.
Connections can be remembered. As such, they are dangerous to me.
I nod and step aside, let another guest fill my spot. Maybe he’ll do what I cannot, hit the hot spots, enjoy his trip to Providence.
Connect.
I look at the envelope with the key card.
Room 759. This is where I will wait.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I TAKE OFF MY CLOTHES.
I put them in a plastic bag, put that inside my travel bag. I’ll drop the plastic bag in a Goodwill bin later. Not a Dumpster. A bag of clothes in a Dumpster invites speculation.
I look at my naked body in the mirror.
When I’m dressed, I’m average in all ways.
Naked, my body tells a different story.
There is the physique. But that can be explained by high school athletics. Most of the time I keep five extra pounds on me to camouflage my muscles.
The problem with being naked is the scar. It’s an ugly gash, hard with scar tissue, located on my left pec in the meat between my chest and shoulder.
A knife wound.
I touch it now, explore the region of dead flesh with my fingers.
Mother calls bad experiences teachable moments. Life lessons.
I had a teachable moment that left its mark on me forever. I learned a lot from this particular one. I learned that facing a person with a knife focuses the mind, even more so when he is pressing the knife into your chest, two inches of the blade disappearing into your flesh.
I learned that Mike was capable of anything.
You learn many things with a knife in your shoulder.
You learn how to save your life. Or how to die.
But that’s what it means to be a soldier. You train for situations like that, and you hope that when they arrive—if they arrive—you will be ready.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE FIRST TWO YEARS IN THE PROGRAM WERE PREPARATION.
Two years to change me from a boy into something else. Human alchemy as practiced by The Program.
At first I fought the transformation. Then I went with it.
My initial impulse to die went away quickly. Nobody really wants to die. It’s unnatural. What I was really experiencing was shock. My parents’ death, my betrayal by Mike, my captivity with strangers.
When the shock passed, my desire to die was replaced by a more natural instinct.
The desire to live.
I threw myself into the training.
There were no other kids training with me. There were only me and a group of professionals. All of them adults.
An entire program created for me, or so it seemed at the time.
I felt special.
Father coordinated. Mother appeared at intervals to check my progress.
There were academics. All of high school and beyond in less than two years.
There was physical training. Weapons and tactics.
There were strategy and psychology.
And there were tests. Many, many tests. Not the kind an average kid has to take. Tests of my courage, my stamina, my fighting skills, my ability to adjust to surprise.
These were the kinds of tests that are graded Pass/Fail. And Fail in The Program means you do not walk away.
When they deemed me ready, there was an explanation of my new job.
Only they didn’t call it a job. They called it a mission.
I am a patriot. That’s what I was told.
As such, my only true job is allegiance to The Program, which gave me life, and to the country I serve.
There may be more like me. Teens hidden in schools acr
oss the land, doing what I do. Getting close. Then completing their assignments.
If they exist, I’ve not met them.
There’s only one other like me, as far as I know.
Mike. The boy who killed my parents.
The boy I had to fight in order to graduate.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I RUN MY FINGER OVER THE HARD RIDGE OF THE SCAR.
Remembering Mike, my brother in The Program. And hating him.
I tell myself I was unskilled then. Not unskilled, exactly, but inexperienced.
Not like today.
Today it would be different.
But even then I learned the lesson:
Survive.
I flip on the television in the hotel room, reaching for some distraction.
This is the problem with waiting. Time to think, time to remember. It’s not helpful to me.
I scan the local news.
Somewhere in Massachusetts, an important Chinese businessman had a heart attack. It makes the regional news down in Providence.
I watch a news cycle on CNN. It does not make national.
The lead story is about the new peace initiative in the Middle East, threatened yet again by violence. The Israeli prime minister and his government are seeking a lasting peace in the region, but elements in his own government are opposing the idea. Shots of a rubble-strewn street in Jerusalem, the blast where a bomb has destroyed a storefront. The Israeli prime minister, well known for his moderate views, begging for calm.
I change over to MTV.
A show about teen dating.
It’s supposed to be a reality show, but it is not. I can see that the people are lying. They have memorized their lines.
This is what I’ve been taught:
If you want to know if someone is lying, turn down the volume. In real life that means stop listening to what they’re saying and watch their actions.
People will say anything. But the things they do—that’s the real tell.
I turn down the volume on the television.
I look at the teens on the show, all smiles and white teeth, mouths opening and closing in a pantomime of love.
I think about my father. Not the man whose e-mail I wait for. My real father.