by Ray Mazza
“It’s peppermint stick. Why?”
“Well, I’m hungry, and I want to try something new,” said Trevor, shrugging as he talked into the receiver.
“Oh. It’s a good thing I don’t like vanilla then.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ve got to go, sir. Good luck with the police.”
~
Trevor sat on a quiet side street bench, eating a cup of peppermint stick ice cream. It tasted delicious. The little bits of peppermint stick were crunchy and fun to chew.
He took a deep breath of fresh air, its coolness amplified by the peppermint as it swept over his tongue and past the back of his throat. It was almost uncomfortably cold.
A mother walked down the sidewalk, holding the hand of a small girl, who wore a hat with some kind of wings on it. They looked like butterfly wings. The girl noticed Trevor’s ice cream and pointed, then reached for it.
The mother pulled her child along. “No, we don’t take the nice man’s ice cream. We haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
Trevor grinned at the unintended meaning, imagining a scenario where they had eaten dinner.
As they passed him, the kid turned around, still reaching toward the ice cream, then started crying. Trevor didn’t want the rest, so without thinking, tossed it into a trash can next to the bench. When it hit the bottom, a metallic echo reverberated through the chilly air. The kid’s eyes widened. She screamed louder and her knees gave way and she refused to walk. The mother tugged on her fruitlessly. Finally the mother picked her up and walked quickly away, giving a short, embarrassed glance in Trevor’s direction. Trevor mouthed, “I’m sorry,” and forced a weak smile.
I hope to God that when I have kids, they never behave like that, he thought, then he tried to tell himself that if he did have kids like that, he would still love them. He had no experience with children, yet they were one of life’s biggest adventures – one he knew he should look forward to. He wasn’t convinced.
And now, he had to figure out what was going on with Damon Winters’ kid.
Trevor set out, frail autumn leaves crackling underfoot. When he reached the police station, he lingered at the front doors. What was his plan? Walk in and just give them the letter? Explain he worked for Day Eight, the source of the network attack, and that this plea for help had appeared on his computer?
They would probably take the letter, make the necessary inquiries, and quickly get to the bottom of things. Would they think he had something to do with it himself?
He read the note again. The part about men in white coats definitely sounded like Damon’s team. Could they really be holding someone hostage? Even in the building on the restricted upper floors? It sounded crazy.
There was one piece of the letter that still didn’t make any sense at all. The address. If anyone can hear me, my address is NIC2114B70057763095426, Eileithyia. Some kind of code. Maybe it got garbled like the web page he’d been looking at during the surge. And it would have made more sense if she’d said it was the address where she was, but she didn’t. She said it was her address. As if she were captive in her own home.
A pair of officers in full uniform exited the front door, heading out for a shift on foot. Trevor stood dead in their path, and it was obvious he had just been loitering.
“Can we help you?” one of the officers said. The one that addressed him was young, his hair sculpted into a mess of spikes. The other, a hulking man, more than one hundred pounds heavier than Trevor, stared at him over a small Styrofoam cup, noisily sipping coffee.
Trevor caught the biting smell of gunpowder, as if they’d just been firing at the range. Trevor glanced at their belts. Guns. They looked heavy. He’d never held a gun before. Trevor looked back up at the cop that had spoken to him. The cop had noticed Trevor’s glance and followed it to the holster in his belt. The cop took a step back.
“Well,” Trevor’s voice shook. “Well, no. I just wanted to know where this place was.”
The hulking cop raised an eyebrow, then took another sip of coffee.
“Just in case,” Trevor threw in, cursing himself in his mind for not being able to stay calm and tell the truth, awkward as it might be.
“Okay,” said the first cop. “Remember, we’re here to help. If anything comes up, give us a call.”
He took a card out of his breast pocket and handed it to Trevor. Trevor stood to the side. They walked down the steps and headed up the street.
Trevor stared at the officer’s card and winced.
“I’m a wimp,” he said. “Dammit.”
Chapter 6
Trucked Off
The phone rang. Snaked across the permanent depressions of his couch cushions, Trevor snapped awake with a Wired magazine warming his chest, his only covers. Sun streamed through his windows. He grimaced, realizing that he’d slept all night without making it to his bed, then grimaced harder when he remembered freaking out at the police station. He shook his head and grabbed the phone.
“Mr. Leighton?” a man on the other end inquired.
“Speaking.”
“I’m calling from Day Eight to inform you that you don’t need to come to work today. We’ll be resolving network problems.”
“Okay,” said Trevor, “maybe I’ll stop by for a bit anyway to do some research in our hard copy archive.”
“I’m afraid we can’t let anyone come in today,” the voice said. “We have a lot of... issues to deal with if we want things to be running normally by Monday.”
“All right,” said Trevor.
“And we have been asked to remind you that if you are confronted by a reporter,” said the voice, “that you decline comment and recommend they speak with our legal staff.”
“Yes,” said Trevor, “I’m aware of that.”
“Good day, Mr. Leighton,” said the voice.
There was a click on the other end of the line. Trevor hung up.
With one hand he patted around the floor for the remote, picked it up, and then clicked through channels until he found more news on the network surge.
“Although major internet problems were handled overnight, problems for Day Eight are just beginning.” The reporter stood on the sidewalk opposite the main entrance of Day Eight, the same one Trevor used each morning. “Behind me, you can see a series of trucks pulling out from their underground loading area. Each carries hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damaged computers and equipment. An unfortunate day for Day Eight indeed.”
Trevor counted the trucks. Eleven. How could there be that much damage? Judging from what he’d seen before he left, it was just network cards that had taken the brunt of the surge, and the computers could be fixed.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the note from Allison. If this document didn’t end up on just his computer, then they might get rid of the rest to cover it up. But cover up what exactly? Was there really a hostage?
Trevor’s face flushed hot with blood. They didn’t know he had this file, did they? They knew the network spiked internally at his machine first. What did that mean? Did he cause this?
Or, maybe he was imagining things. When he was a kid he would picture his parents getting into car accidents, or his dog running into traffic. He didn’t imagine these things on purpose, they just sort of popped into his head. He hated it. He read books to try and find out what was wrong with him. Eventually he found that it was quite common to imagine devastating events. It was a way the brain helped prepare itself in case similar situations ever did arise, and it was one explanation for nightmares. Funny thing was, once Trevor learned this, his horrible imaginations became less frequent.
But that wasn’t helping now. He imagined arriving at work and being escorted to a restricted floor by expressionless clones in lab coats. They’d push him into a room where a girl named Allison was gagged and bound, and just as he’d make eye contact with her, an assurance that everything would be okay – he got her message and was here to save her – they would inject something into his neck, and he w
ould collapse onto a plastic drop cloth. Just like in the movies. The last thing he’d see would be a look of horror on her face as he seized up and lost consciousness.
He decided if a group of men in white lab coats tried to escort him somewhere, he’d run.
Trevor rewound the DVR to watch the news clip again. This time he noticed something odd at the end of the segment, barely in-frame as the camera panned away. All of the trucks that came out of the garage turned right and drove off the left side of the screen. Then the very last one turned the opposite direction. What did that mean? Did that mean anything at all? He massaged his head with both hands, suppressing a headache.
“I need a shower,” he announced to himself, as if saying it aloud would help take his mind off things. “And I need to urinate.” He sung the word urinate like it was some song he’d heard. He chuckled, only slightly embarrassed at his behavior.
Trevor went to the bathroom, showered, and got ready to go find the office of Valerie Winters, Damon’s ex-wife.
Chapter 7
Fourteen Years
Trevor Leighton sat in a waiting room outside Valerie Winters’ office and pretended to read a health magazine. His eyes saw the words, but his brain wasn’t processing them. Each time he flipped a page, he used it as an excuse to look up and steal another glance at the two gray-suited men standing outside Valarie’s door like sentinels. They wore earpieces and their jackets bulged. There had been a dark truck outside and two other similarly suited men at the building entrance. They’d frisked him, and rather roughly at that. He had wanted to ask what was going on, but couldn’t get the words out. Instead, they’d been the ones asking the questions, and finally let him go up when they verified he had an appointment.
Today, even the secretary seemed distracted from her game of computer solitaire.
The sentinels stood, still as steel beams. Occasionally one looked directly at Trevor, then re-assumed a constant survey of the room. Some kind of bodyguards? They both wore little gold pins on their lapels. The pins were five-pointed stars with snub tips, like miniature deputy stars.
Soon the door opened to the inner office; one bodyguard flanked it while the other immediately secured the office exit. Valerie and a man emerged, laughing. He said, “Thanks for your support, Valerie, I appreciate it. And listen, the DA owes me; I got him his job, so I can get you both in touch.” Then she shook his hand and waved bye. When the man turned around Trevor finally saw him.
Holy Crap. It was the Republican presidential candidate, Mayor Trent Paxton. The men in suits were Secret Service agents.
Trent Paxton was one of the most successful and idealistic mayors New York City had ever seen. He was such a charismatic man and spoke so eloquently that it was nearly impossible to dislike him. The guy could be describing the way he kidney-punched an old lady to steal her cab, and his audience would be nodding and saying, “Way to go! That was the right thing to do!” Of course, Paxton would do no such thing. And he had the most powerful smile, which Trevor now saw was even more authoritative in person than on TV.
As Mayor Paxton walked out, he looked at Trevor and tossed him a smile and a nod. The rear Secret Service agent followed at his heel.
Trevor returned the smile and said, “I voted for you!”
Paxton paused, and ran a ringless hand down his odd tie – black on one half, white on the other, cleft by a gray line down the middle as if it were splitting the man in half.
“Thank you,” he said. “If you’re happy, please vote for me again in two weeks.” Although disbelievers said he didn’t have much of a chance at the presidency due to his short record in politics, his campaign had been soaring. If Paxton did get elected, he would be the youngest president ever, at thirty-nine years of age – just four years older than the minimum age requirement for holding the presidency.
Trevor was rooting for Paxton like he would a sports team. He always liked to cheer for the underdog, and he happened to respect this particular underdog. He would be three years younger than the youngest president, Trevor thought.
Trevor’s reflection turned inward and covered a lot of ground in all of two seconds. I’m thirty-two. That guy was mayor when he was my age. Mayor! And now he’s running for president. What have I accomplished? Published a few papers in journals that nobody reads? Spoke at a few conferences where the bar nights consist of a bunch of nerds pretending that drinking beer makes them more human? And then talking about freaking computer games? What are my plans? What are my big plans? What if I never—
“Mr. Leighton?” The secretary and Valerie were both looking at him. Trevor refocused. He wasn’t even sure which of them had spoken.
“You can come in now,” said Valerie. The warmth he noticed in her face and movements when Paxton had been there had vanished. She was stern, and her actions quick and precise as she closed the door behind them and took a seat at her desk. She didn’t offer a chair to Trevor.
“I understand you have something important in regard to my daughter?” she said.
“Yes,” said Trevor, “you see, I work at Day Eight... where Damon is.”
“I know that’s where Damon is. Go on.”
“And when the surge came out of the building,” Trevor unfolded the note from Allison and handed it to Valerie, “this appeared on a memory stick I had plugged into my computer. I think it’s some kind of plea for help.”
He watched her eyes scan the document, her face expressionless. Her hair flowed silver; she looked older than Damon. Yet vital. Powerful. No wrinkles breached her skin.
As Trevor watched, something very subtle changed in her face.
“What the hell is this?” she fired at him, holding the letter up as if he hadn’t seen it before. “Why would you do this?”
Trevor fidgeted with his hands in his pockets. He hadn’t thought she wouldn’t believe him. “I’m just trying to—”
“Who told you to do this? Huh? Did someone at the Post put you up to this? Or one of Paxton’s opponents?”
“No, no, this is serious,” Trevor said, looking her directly in the eyes. For a moment the sagging musculature around her jaw dominated her appearance, like she had aged twenty years in a breath. Then her face went stern again.
“You want to know what serious is?” Valerie raised her voice. “Jail! Jail is serious. And it’s a serious offense to be in here harassing me about my daughter! It’s been fourteen years since Allison died, and I’d expect that to be long enough for charades like this to stop!” She was fuming, but tears began to run down her cheeks.
Trevor stood up and began to back away. Valerie crumpled up the paper and threw it at Trevor, who nearly fell over as it bounced off his face.
“Get out,” Valerie said, looking away, “and don’t ever come back.”
Trevor didn’t pick up the paper. He just walked out of the office as a faint “Sorry,” evaporated through his lips.
~
Trevor descended the three flights of stairs from Valerie’s office rather than taking the elevator. He didn’t feel worthy of an elevator right now… He felt awful. What was he thinking? Did he expect Valerie to say that, yes, her daughter had been missing and he saved the day?
I’m an idiot, Trevor thought. But… Allison hasn’t been alive for fourteen years? How had she died? Maybe this was a letter that had been misplaced for that long. Or it was evidence someone had been hiding, and then in the internet surge it somehow ended up on his memory stick. And maybe she hadn’t believed him because it had been so long. Fourteen years! Why would she believe him?
Trevor started to hop down the steps quickly. He knew what he had to do. He was going back to the police station. He’d let them take over, as he should have done in the first place. He felt like he couldn’t get there quickly enough.
He threw the front door open, nearly in a jog, and collided with the building security guard – a short, but extremely built dark-skinned man who stood with the authority of a cement column. Trevor bounced off him, stumbled bac
kward, tripped over the doorstep, and fell back into the building. The door almost closed on his legs, but the security guard caught it with a firm hand.
The guard reached out to him and said, “You must be Mr. Leighton.”
Trevor nodded, and accepted his help up.
“Miss Winters requested I stop you at the door,” the security guard said. “She would like you to wait here for a moment.”
“Oh, okay,” Trevor said. “Did she say why?”
“I can’t say that she did.”
They were now standing outside on the stoop, a bit too close for comfort, surrounded by an awkward moment of silence. Trevor cleared his throat. The security guard rocked on his feet while his shifting gaze found its way to each intersection.
Valerie must be coming down to apologize. Like Trevor, it must have just taken a few moments for the reality of things to settle in.
After a few minutes, what he was waiting for arrived – and it wasn’t Valerie.
“Oh no,” he said, as a police cruiser rounded the corner, lights flashing.
Chapter 8
Heat
Trevor’s heart pounded like it expected him to make a break for it. But he stood there. The police cruiser swerved to the curb and two blues jumped out. The security guard motioned toward Trevor, the cops nodded in acknowledgement, and were now coming toward him.
A flicker of recognition. He’d seen them before.
It was the officer with spiky hair and his partner, the massive man. Maybe Valerie had changed her mind and they were there to help. Maybe this wasn’t bad.
“Put your hands on your head and get on the ground,” the spiky-haired cop told Trevor in a controlled voice. The cop had his hand on his nightstick and moved to one side, while the hulking cop circled to the other. Trevor was in the center of a diamond formed by the security guard behind him, the cop car in front of him, and the two officers on either side.