“I know what you’re thinking: This is some kind of trick to get your guard down. I don’t blame you; I’d probably think the same thing, but when it comes down to it, you’re the best thing in my life. I’m proud enough to deny it most of the time—so don’t get used to it,” Jaden said, half-smiling, “But I know what’s real and what’s not. And I know how smart you are. It’s what makes your opinion count a thousand times more than anyone else’s, and it’s the reason it hurt so much when you said those things about Spencer and Mr. Jefferson, but deep down I knew you were right. They’re idiots. It’s just . . . it’s just sometimes you need to have people around that accept you, you know? People who aren’t hypercritical, who don’t judge every little thing about you.” He looked down at the placemat in front of him and continued talking, addressing himself to the table. “But I’m realizing now that those kind of people are shortcuts that keep you from working through your problems. And Mom and Dad . . . well, I think they love me, but what does that really mean? What’s that really worth when it’s just given out?” And then his eyes moved back up to me. “I’m pretty sure they’d love whoever had shown up in that prenatal unit. It hurt to hear that from you, though. It really fucking hurt, and I freaked out a little—I know. But that’s how we grow, right, by being hurt?”
He was doing such a good job of sounding sincere with the faint quiver in his voice and almost moist looking eyes, but the problem was he wasn’t sincere. He’d never been sincere. And the only time he’d ever seemed sincere before was when it suited him to appear so. So, even though I badly wanted to accept this as the truth, there was at least a ninety percent chance it wasn’t.
Not wanting to give away my disbelief, I took a deep breath like you would if you were relieved about something. “Yeah, Jaden. That’s how we grow.”
I showered, brushed my teeth, and dressed, feeling ill about what Jaden was trying to keep from me. It could just be him worried about me leaking his test results to the psych registry, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided there had to be something else to it. He wouldn’t go through all the trouble otherwise. He could’ve been just trying to manage me so I’d Revise him, but I highly doubted he believed me about that anymore.
Before going to school, I plugged in Syd and pulled up footage from her previous day’s neighborhood patrol on my workstation. The streets were ghost-like, apocalyptic as usual. Occasional dog walkers—Mr. Jefferson among them, walking the LePardues’ dog again. A kid on a bike. A few commuters. A new Alcon Firelight like Michael’s dad had. And then a police car.
I froze along with the image as my hand tapped the keyboard. I froze every time I saw the police now—the same feeling of being hunted crawling up my throat. The car had a strip of lights on top that was so thin that you wouldn’t know what it was until it was behind you, flashing. A lion to your gazelle. Ethan had been pulled over last spring by that exact model when I’d been a passenger, so I knew what it looked like.
But of course they’d be patrolling, especially here given all the robberies—that was their job. I did a half sigh of relief at the thought, though at the same time there was something eerie about it being so far out of its lane, almost on the curb. Almost as if it were stopped. I rewound the footage. Yeah, it was just sitting there as Syd flew by: parked a block from our house.
Chapter 26
I couldn’t tell what noises were real the rest of the day. Lawn mower. Renovation in the house two over from ours. Automated pressure washers blasting gum off the school sidewalks. Those were obvious enough, but they stayed with me when I went to my locker and in the library during open hour, reading a criminal investigation procedure manual. A phantom ringing, both high and low octave drones, reappearing whenever I thought about them. A psychosomatic tinnitus.
At lunch I couldn’t bare it anymore and went over to Uncle Richard’s yard to check on what had been battering my mind all morning. A few moments later Ethan arrived.
“We can’t keep skipping school like this. Especially with—”
“Ethan, we’ve got a problem.”
“Yeah, I know man, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, but you think we can—”
“No, no it’s not just the cops, it’s Jaden. He’s the one who told Spencer to buy from you. He’s the one who—”
“No one needs to tell Spencer to buy stamps,” scoffed Ethan, slightly amused. “He’s going to do that all by himself.”
“Yeah, but from you, Ethan. You. He wasn’t doing that before. Just like those freshmen weren’t buying from you until Jaden told you they were in the market. So why would he do that? Why would he be trying to get you more business?”
Ethan shrugged.
“Because he’s trying to turn the cops on to us.”
“What? Your fourteen-year-old brother?” At first Ethan’s face was confused and disbelieving, his smirk tilting, but as he continued to process what I’d said I could tell there that was some slight hint of recognition beginning to flicker. He didn’t know Jaden as well as I did, but he knew him. “You’ve always been a little jumpy, but this . . .”
We’d been walking along the path through the old rusted-out car frames and had stopped by an old 20’ Stingray cuddy cabin without a rudder. “He’s trying to make it look like we’re doing it all.” I reached over the gunwale and grabbed a drill. “Oh, look here, a new 40V brushless 7-speed DeWalt Hammer drill. And let’s see . . .” I fished around some more. “New orbital sander. And over by the shed is an impact driver and coring rig, along with a brand new 40ci plasma cutter. That stuff’s not your uncle’s.” I shook my head. “He uses Khrushchev-era Soviet tools he gets at auctions. But guess who doesn’t’?”
Ethan looked sick. For a second it seemed like he was going to say something, but only grimaced.
“The people being robbed. They use exactly this kind of residential-grade crap. Or not use it. Look how nice it looks. It’s exactly the kind of stuff that some software engineer dad would buy to look like some manly weekend craftsman.”
“But how could Jaden be doing it?” asked Ethan, tentatively.
“I went back through Syd’s footage of Mr. Jefferson walking the dog, and if you zoom in you can see him twisting so his cams record all the good-looking houses. And he takes these long, winding routes through the streets we’ve always thought were the most promising. Dunbar. Atlas. Sycamore. He’s casing them, Eth. Jaden’s the other robber.”
Ethan started shaking his head. “Maybe that’s just how Mr. Jefferson walks.”
“I know how he walks,” I said sharply.
“Or maybe Jaden’s just interested in . . .”
“In landscaping and fine suburban mcmansion architecture? Right, Ethan. And maybe he’s suddenly an un-Revised piano virtuoso and best friends with our friend who’s talking to the cops about the drugs you’ve been selling them and has his buddybot spying on me just for kicks.”
“He does a lot of things just for kicks, dude.”
I was about to shoot something back, but that gave me pause. Jaden loved making people jump. Teachers, other students. Our parents occasionally. It wouldn’t be so crazy to add me to the list. But still, all of this would take a lot of time. A lot work. And Jaden didn’t like work unless there was some obvious payoff coming.
There was chirping and I looked up to see a flock of honeycreepers and sunbirds flying a couple hundred feet above us. That was the closest I’d ever seen them here, since Richard was so concerned about the pollinator cams catching something incriminating on film that last summer he’d cut down every flowering plant on the property when he was high on stamps. It had effectively been more of a favor to us, though, considering that he did all his drugs inside and his worst contraband was a few unlicensed firearms.
“And why would he do that if he thinks you’re going to help him?” asked Ethan, stepping into the shade of an ash tree so the birds wouldn’t be able to see him. When it, along with the white oaks and elms, flowered in the spring, Richa
rd would probably cut them down, too.
“He never thought that. The other robberies only started a week after ours did,” I said, following Ethan into the shade. “He’s doing this because the police need to bring someone one in. And since there’re already bread crumbs leading back to our house, he’s got to make damn sure they lead to me and not him.”
“Jaden wouldn’t do that.”
“You don’t get to have it both ways, Ethan! You gave me a speech about what a genius he was, so you can’t now say he’s only this disaffected prankster.”
“That’s not what I mean. I think he’s clever enough, just that he wouldn’t do this to you.”
“He likes winning. And he’s always liked hurting things. So why should I be so sure I’m exempt from that?”
Had I actually thought that? I didn’t think so—I’d only got his help in the first place because I thought there wasn’t any other way—but on some level I must’ve. I must’ve believed that being brothers counted for something. That there was something powerful bonding us together.
“I think you’re being too hard on him, dude.” Ethan looked down. Beneath him part of the ash tree’s root system had made its way to the surface, where it had killed most of the nearby grass. And despite being mostly hacked down a few weeks ago, yellow starthistle and scotch broom were starting to sprout in its place. If left to their own devices, in another couple of weeks, they’d flower, and the bee, bird, and butterfly drones would be rushing right back in. “One time he asked if I’d ever thought about suicide before. And when I said yeah, he said he had, too, and how dramatic he’d make it with candles floating around him in the library fountain at night. Or have drone birds drop him on the field during a football game. Said no one listened or loved him—they just wanted to fix him. So, he was going to save every one the trouble.”
“He likes himself way too much for anything like that. No, Ethan, he was just working you, just like he works everyone.”
“I just don’t want to . . . what exactly are you saying we should do, anyway?”
“The only thing we can. Let him be the one that the police march out of my house.”
“But . . .” Ethan looked despondent.
I grabbed the drill and pushed the power button. “Or we could go see how certain your uncle is about these.”
“Yeah, they’re not his. Obviously. But that doesn’t mean Jaden put them there. And even if he did, maybe he just wants to send us a . . .”
“A message?”
“I don’t freaking know, just like you don’t freaking know.” Ethan sat down on one of the larger roots, leaning up against the spot in the boat where the engine was supposed to be. “I don’t know what I know anymore. I just think we should be fucking sure first. Maybe we should talk to Spencer.”
“So he can tip Jaden off? No way in hell.” I paused. “But you want proof? Fine. I’ll go get it for you.”
Chapter 27
The only time when Mr. Jefferson was out of the house was when he was walking the Le Pardues’ dog, and he only did that on weekdays in the late morning, when I was at school. That probably wasn’t a coincidence. Either he was goose-guarding Jaden’s room or snooping on me—I’d just been too caught up with my own shit to realize it. And the only way Jaden wouldn’t realize I was spying on him back was if I did it during the one hour Mr. Jefferson was gone.
I really didn’t want to take a sick day in case it tripped some flagging algorithm, but I was out of options and fortunately I’d been so conscious of not taking one for so long that it was probably within a reasonable standard deviation now anyway. And it was in the morning, away from when any of the burglaries—ours or the others’—had been happening, so it wouldn’t look like I was leaving school for that.
Faking it wasn’t a stretch, either. My nose was already running. My face was warm. It wouldn’t have been so easy at Lawrence where the Medpad could do a more extensive diagnostic, but left to a rudimentary thermometer it was as simple as chugging hot tea from a thermos from the teacher’s lounge when the nurse had her back turned.
I took the side streets home, sticking to green zones on the community drone map, and parked a street over from our house—in the opposite direction from the LePardues’ house—so I’d be able to go out the back unseen in case Mr. Jefferson came home early. The silver lining in being so badly duped was that Jaden didn’t know I suspected anything yet. I just needed to keep acting normal.
I opened our door casually like I belonged there, but I felt just as anxious as when I was robbing houses. Both the leash and Mr. Jefferson’s mobile charge pack were gone, though I still crept into the living room and then the kitchen, quiet enough that I could maybe catch him in the middle of something if he was still here.
The hallway and den were both empty. The door was partially shut to my parents’ room, so I cracked it open. I walked a few feet in so I could see into the master bathroom, and then walked out again. My room was locked just how I left it. So was Jaden’s.
Satisfied that I was alone, I went back down the hall into the living room, noting Mr. Bosworth lying on the edge of the couch in the middle of the window’s sunlight. He was black and white and had rolls of fat as a result of Jaden’s years of overfeeding. Mom and Dad had recently tried to get him to stop, but Jaden got such a big kick out of seeing him lurch around that he now just had Mr. Jefferson dispense the treats when they were at work.
I went into the laundry room, opened the top drawer where the Puss ’n Boots Special Occasion cat food was, and scooped it into Mr. Bosworth’s bowl. Then I took out the tranquilizers we’d given the golden retriever at the Van De Kamps’ and stirred one in along with a few of his BiteDLite freeze-dried lamb squares. I was about to start tapping the spoon against his dish as a dinner bell, but he’d already appeared at the laundry room door and was beginning to take tentative, arthritic steps forward.
“That’s right, kitty. That’s right. You don’t trust me at all, but you’re going to eat it anyway.”
Mr. Bosworth paused to yawn as he looked up at the window above the washer and dryer. Then he looked at me and I looked at my watch. I had about twenty minutes until the earliest time Mr. Jefferson had ever returned from dog walking, and eighteen if I wanted a ten percent safety buffer.
I stepped past the cat and walked back through the short hall into the kitchen. Thirty seconds later there was the sound of licking lips and chewing. Another thirty and there was silence. I walked back, opened up a baggie with the PetPerspective lenses, and rolled Mr. Bosworth onto his back.
Chapter 28
I could’ve said I was feeling better and gone back to school, but then it would’ve looked like I’d ducked out for something in particular. Instead, I went to the VRcade, the least suspicious hooky-playing destination around and suited up for a few rounds of Dominh8 6. My anemic, four-year-old VR rig at home muddled through for confined, narrative-centric games like Wolftac R8, but strained against the nosebleed system reqs of something open universe, first person shooter like this was. You needed an all-star graphics processing unit or GPU to maintain the spell of realism and enough RAM to keep up with all the transportation and world hopping. It was fun in a way—just to drop everything, strap on a haptic suit, and blow stuff up—like a wormhole into the kind of teenage life I could’ve been having.
But as soon as I was out of the suit and headgear and it was just me and my matted, sweaty hair again, the urgency streamed back. I made the circuitous trip around the CDN and Traffix cams over to Richard’s as quickly as I could. I was planning on disposing of all the new tools, but in case I missed any or Jaden planted more, we needed as small a trail there as possible.
Fortunately, there’d be plenty of plausible deniability if the police got that far since Richard wasn’t credible, hitting Ethan’s stamps so hard that he couldn’t carry on a serious conversation anymore. While we were aware of each other as I passed him sprawled out on his lawn chair, it was like we were on different planes of sp
ace that couldn’t touch. His mind was in a happier dimension, one that you couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave here for. Part of me still thought Ethan should cut him off, but what else was he supposed to do? He’d served in the military—a field medic I think—which was mostly droned out now, as were all the retail surplus stores where he’d been employed in the time since. He’d have to switch careers, which would be near impossible given his lack of a genetics or computer science degree.
The rain from last night accentuated the mildew smell of the shed as I entered and plopped down my bag. Ethan and I had talked about caulking it and installing a vent, but if we did anything now we should make it look even more run down. More white trash. The kind of place more geared to stamp approximations and crude, VR cock fighting, not churning out high-end, state-of-the-art microfauna drones.
And we needed more drones. If I was even half right about this, it meant putting Jaden and Mr. Jefferson under constant surveillance. The problem was that even though we had the design down and it didn’t require much material, the parts were so intricate that you had to use stabilization gloves and precision tweezers to attach the wires and fuse the exoskeleton. Even with the hand-eye coordination bump Ethan and I had gotten in our latest Revision, it was still taking a while. I just kept thinking how much farther we’d be if we’d had a 100 or a 110 percent boost instead of a 65. Plus, if I’d had more white matter, I could’ve thought my way around half of the welding I was doing right now—making it a two-day job instead of a two-week one. We were always behind our potential. Always chasing.
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