"Yeah I've been hearing from people that you're going around and getting involved in all of this New Surge, Up Sync stuff?"
"Yeah, actually. I'm doing a long form report on tech regulation based on all of the Senate hearings with New Surge. I've been chasing a more interesting angle lately and I think you'd be a great addition if you have time to chat with me for a few minutes."
"Don't treat me like one of your other interviews," he says.
His directness catches me off guard again. I nearly drop the phone.
"I wasn't."
"You were. You were pretending I was some professor out in Iowa that'll explain to you what's going on. But that's not me. I'm not some professor out in Iowa."
"Okay, sorry." Boy, the ego on this guy.
"And I don't speak on the record. Not anymore."
"Oh, great."
"But I'll tell you things."
"Things?"
"I'll tell you what I know. I don't have a closed mouth when it comes to stuff like this. I am an open book."
"Why haven't you come forward?"
"Let's just say I have an agreement with a friend."
"A friend, huh? Who's that?"
"Listen, I don't know you well enough to give you any meaningful information. I will though if we meet in person. I don't like doing these things over the phone."
"Okay. I can meet you somewhere."
"Tell me where you are. I'll come to you. Safer."
"The Liaison."
"I'll meet you in the lobby. THere's a nice restaurant there. We can grab some food and talk this through. But no recordings. No notepad. Just talk."
I don't love the sound of that. Just talk means nothing can be remembered and I could mishear everything he's about to tell me.
But desperate times, right?
"See you in an hour."
I don't know what to expect from an interview with this guy. He seems hard-nosed, tough, a bit selfish. I don't know how I am going to convince him to give me meaningful information. Then again, he seems to have gone through tough times. He might have his own strategy for dealing with surfaces.
It's odd to me that both Minny and Heath -- two mysterious people who I have never met and yet who are involved with the New Surge stuff in some way -- both disappeared from the spotlight. They did their meaningful reporting and then poof. Just gone. Gone like the wind. Gone like dust. Never to be heard from again.
Well, that was until I started poking around. Now they'll share their story and help me share it with the world.
I put on a new outfit for the interview. A pair of slim jeans, white Nikes and a hoodie. I want to appear as least antagonistic as possible. And for me, that means taking off all my business attire and looking like I just walked off the street.
I leave my room. The hallways still reek of smoke. A couple with two children pass me. The parents are arguing about trivial stuff, like where they parked their cars. The argument has built up for years. There's nothing necessary about it.
I ride the elevator down alone. It feels nice to be alone for a few minutes before what will be an important conversation. I don't know what to expect from this Heath guy either. He seemed so grizzly and shaken on the phone. He seemed like a guy who didn't want to be bothered. And yet I know that he wanted to have a conversation with me.
SO what will it be like for us to communicate? I've been out in the world reporting on people and places and circumstances. He seems to have been closed off and away from society.
Someone who hides doesn't want to be found. So what happens when he finally comes out of hiding and is forced to interact with someone? My mind spins at the possibilities that will present themselves today.
I stroll down into the lobby. It's changed over from the nice and warm greeting spot when people enter and exit the hotel to a fine dining restaurant primarily focused around dinner. Gentle piano tunes play from the speakers scattered around. The restaurant has a nice warm glow. Patrons walk around to their tables. There's a scent of steak and finely smashed potatoes. I can trace the faint hint of wine. It's a beautiful spot. It's a place I wouldn't mind spending a few hours at when on a date. But for now, I'll just hang out by myself in the lobby and wait for heath.
I expect a man with a thick full beard and a beard belly that won't quit to enter into the hotel and talk to me. But it's nothing of the sort. The first man to come inside the restaurant has stringy brown hair and a chiseled jaw. His facial hair is moderate at best. He's dressed in a brown blazer, dark blue jeans, and a pair of brown dress shoes. A messenger bags hangs off his body. He stares around the room wildly until he spots me. When our eyes meet, there's this knowing glance like we know we're here for the other.
He walks over to me and extends his hands. His voice isn't as gritty as it sounded on the phone. Did he try masking his voice when we chatted earlier? I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that.
"Annette Gardner?"
"Heath?"
"That's right."
"Wow. In the flesh. I never thought I'd actually have a chance to meet you. Your name kept popping up everywhere I went so I just figured you were a ghost."
"Not a ghost. Not yet at least."
"Well, thank you for meeting me. I have a lot of questions for you and I am glad we finally got talk about all of this in person."
"Same. Shall we catch a drink?"
We walk over to the bar that is situated on the far side of the restaurant. There are three empty seats so we take two of them. He orders a local IPA and I buy a vodka soda. Keep it light simple. Enough alcohol to loosen up, but not enough that I won't keep my whits about me. Doing that is more important than almost anything else.
He takes a long sip of his drink. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. He holds in a burp that I watch a whiff of. Smells just like the beer he was just drinking.
"So," he says. "What do you want to know?"
Straight, direct, and right to the point. I like that. It definitely helps move the conversation along a little easier. I'm not sure what I am supposed to ask first. I didn't plan on asking anything like this either. I just wanted to meet him and find out more about him and his connection to New Surge.
So I guess that's a good place to start.
"What do you do know about New Surge?"
"Not much. If I'm being honest."
"And if you were lying?"
"I'd say more than the average person, but not a lot, truthfully. I have heard of them of course, just like anyone. But I don't know all that much."
"What do you know?"
He takes a second to think. "I guess I know that they're a technology company and that they're pretty high up there in terms of the food chain. But I don't know what they do exactly. Something with analytics. Well, and they own a bunch of other companeies."
"Like Up Sync."
"Yep."
"And Maximum Inc?"
He smiles. "So you did your homework?"
"As much as I could. I have to say, there's not a lot about you on the internet."
"Those who want to hide stay hidden," he says.
"Interesting. And what makes you want to hide?"
He takes another long sip of his drink. I wonder how much is left in his bottle.
"I never really talk about what happened. Damn. It was just so long ago, you know? Probably two years ago by my count. It doesn't seem like long, but it is."
"What happened?"
"I left the Scribe after some dramatics, you know. The boss was gonna offer me this job but my girlfriend at the time, Minny, she took it."
"So you dated Minny."
"Yep."
"And she took a job before you?"
"That's right. She was writing fake news for the Scribe. Long story short, the Scribe owned some fake news websites and decided to make money off of them to capitalize off the growing fame of fake news. And then, slowly, they'd turn those fake news sites into real ones so that people would move on and not be intereste
d in fake news anymore. Sort of an interesting plan."
"That's one way to describe it."
"But here we are," he says with a shrug. "We didn't do much to fix that problem."
"So what happened?"
"We were writing along and then just. Boom. Everything changed. Minny disappeared. She just left all of our lives. She did leave me a text though one day, telling me that she needed some time to herself to make sure whatever was going on wasn't as bad as she thought."
"And was it?"
"Was what?"
"Was it as bad as she thought?"
"I couldn't tell you. I just remember that one day I wake up to a text from her telling me that she quit the Scribe and that I could get my old job back. She says she went into hiding and that's all I knew."
"Knew? So did you talk to her again."
"I did."
"And?"
"You have to understand that Minny didn't ... She didn't do so well toward the end of all of this. Before she disappeared. I went to talk to her at her apartment on the south side of the city. She was curled up in her bedroom with a laptop in front of her. She was drinking her third cup of coffee. Her hair was frazzled, her eyes were large, and she was so focused on her computer screen. Like her eyes were glued to it.
"I knock on the door. She answers it. And then she goes right back to her laptop. I ask her what she's been up to and she tells me she's been studying everything going on. She says she's close to uncovering all of it. She finally found the answers to everything."
"What does that mean?"
He shrugs. "I have no idea. She was saying though that she uncovered the truth about New Surge and that she just needed the proof. She needed to prove her theory. And she was getting close."
"Did she ever do it? Uncover New Surge?"
"I don't know," he says. "She seemed so lost, so crazy, that I just wished her well and walked out the door. I told her she could call me if she never needed anything. But I never heard from her again."
"Wow."
"So going back to your original question, yes, I know stuff about New Surge. But I know there's something more there. Because not long after that conversation with Minny, I just noticed little things. I would see New Surge's logo here, or there, or everywhere. I would notice companies were owned by them. And then, I would walk by their logo and feel a sense of Deja Vu. It was the strangest thing."
"Huh. That is strange."
"And then I noticed these little things. Men in suits. Walking around wherever I was. Like they were following me. Like they had it out for me."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah. Like just everywhere. These little men in their perfect suits, chasing me down. And it got to me. It got to me so much that I went into hiding. Just off the grid. I couldn't take it anymore."
"Wow. I am so sorry."
He waves it off. "Don't be. It's probably for the best."
"And you never heard from Minny again?"
"No. I went by her apartment and it was empty. She was gone."
"Wow."
We sit there and listen to the piano music play by the bar. We sit in silence and I try to think of more questions. But what he has told me is enough for a long time. He has told me enough to understand that Minny went off the deep end while trying to report on New Surge.
It'd be silly for me not to see my own parallel here. I am also researching New Surge, and I too just need proof. Just one piece of evidence to bring the whole story together.
Am I going crazy like she did? Am I going insane?
"So you have no idea what happened to Minny?"
He moves his head left to right, like he's weighing some unseeable options about his life.
"I wouldn't say that, exactly."
"This is where you explain yourself."
"I saw her again," he says. "Just once. Saw her walking down the street. She looked ... different. Not the same Minny I used to know. So I followed her and tried to find out where she lived but I lost her while crossing the street. Part of me wonders if she was even there to begin with."
And here we are again. I've reached another dead-end road.
"I wish I could be more helpful," he says.
"You're fine," I reply. "I wish I could have had better questions."
"It was worth it just to come out this way," he says. "I rarely see this part of the city."
"Well, I appreciate it."
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a business card. He hands it to me. I accept it and read all of his information on the front. When I flip it over, I see another phone number written there.
"That's Minny's number," he says. "I haven't tried calling it so I have no idea if it works. But if you get desperate and you really want to hear from here, that's how you call."
I look at the card in my hand and read the number again. The answers to all my questions could be one phone call away. Minny is just one call away, assuming she didn't change her number.
"Now," he says, raising his glance. "Let's drink and learn about each other."
I don't want to learn more about him. I want to get back to work and look into everything I've been reporting on. He gives me her number and just expects me to spend the night drinking.
But the sincere look on his face wins me over. I'm not sure he's spent much time partying over the last few years, and so he certainly deserves a night to have a little fun. So I raise my glass and meet his. We clink them together and take a sip.
Chapter 27:Wake up
A phone call from Ben wakes me up the next morning.
My eyelids hang dangerously close to the edge of my eyeball. My skin feels crusty. My back is soft and comforted by the bed beneath me. It takes a second or two for me to catch up on being awake. But it feels good to be up. I slept pretty well last night. No dreams, no nightmares. Maybe it was the alcohol. The one drink with Heath turned into two, which turned into three, which turned into one shot of tequila to end the night.
Amazingly, I'm not hungover. My heads feels fine. My stomach graves something heavy and greasy. That'll be a part of my next feel for sure.
My phone rings beside me and I pick it up to see Ben is calling me. I hesitate before answering. He's not my boyfriend anymore. At least for now until all this senator stuff quiets down.
But I answer anyway because I know we've been talking a lot about this entire reporting experience and he probably wants an update after my night with Heath. I'm also interested to know if he heard anything else form the Senator.
We still don't know who posted his bail.
"Benny boy," I say, and I'm a little surprised at myself for saying.
"Annie, girl? Sorry, I don't how this works."
"It's okay," I say. "I don't think my name is really made for nicknames."
"Yeah, I feel you," he says. "Anyway, how was your night? Did you end up talking to that Heath guy?"
"I did, actually. He swung by the hotel."
"Oh, so it was a date?"
"Not a date, exactly. He swung by because he wanted to meet in person and he didn't want me to go find him somewhere."
"Weirdo."
"I thought he would have a beard like the uni-bomber or something. I thought he would be totally pale, big beard, tattered clothes -- all of that. But he was totally normal. He was just normal, regular guy."
"Did he say anything interesting?"
"He told me a little bit about this Minny girl I've been hearing about. He said she was doing a ton of reporting into New Surge and then she just sort of went nuts."
"Ah, so you're freaking out about it?"
"How did you know?"
"I know you pretty well," he says. "I bet knowing that someone else reported on New Surge and going insane probably made you super nervous. I just had a vibe."
"Well, you'd be right. But yeah, I don't know what to do about it now. He did give me her number, though. Like, Heath gave me a card and her number was on the back. So I think I might call her soon."
"
Dude you have to! You have to call her. This could put everything together you've been working on. What if she has the missing pieces?"
He doesn't understand that she probably changed number. She moved apartments so there's a good chance that she switched her number too.
"Well, tell me, did you hear anything more from the senator? Did you learn anything else about who posted your bail?"
"Nah, I actually fell asleep right when I got home," he says. "I'm supposed to go meet with the senator and the team in a few hours. They really didn't let me go. Of course, they're keeping me at a distance for now. But once this blows over I'll be back in the game."
"So are they still searching for a suspect then?"
"I think so," he says. "I don't know what's going on. My lawyer is taking care of all of that. Everything is just a mess."
He's not wrong. These last few hours have just been a mess and I don't see any sign of it all slowing down. I still have to figure out how this story is going to end and how I am going to finish my reporting. And then there's Minny hovering about like a ghost. Ben is in trouble. Tiffany called me out. Mack is around doing his normal PR things.
I just wish it could all stop. I just wish it could all end and I would go back to those blissful days when I was on the road.
A serial killer may not be chasing me. A murderer may not be trying to take my life. But the amount of storm clouds hanging over me will drown me if I wait too long. The storm will rain down on me and lightning will strike. This will all fall apart way too soon.
Ben tells me that he's going to call me back later when he hears from the station about who paid the bail. I wish him luck. I'm about to tell him I love him, but I hold back. I know that would upset the senator if I keep this up. I have to keep that distance.
When I hang up the phone, I throw it onto my bed and lay down. My heads sink into the thick pillow. I flip on the TV. It's CNN again. The talking heads are no debating the Monument Murder of all things. Of course they would be talking about it so early in the morning and just when I'm thinking about it. That's just my luck.
I flip on the volume so I can hear it. One of the speakers, who has a shiny bald head and perfect teeth, has command of the discussion, like he's holding the conversation stick, or the conch shell.
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