Playing Tyler (26 page)

“Yeah, opium.” My voice is flat. Like roadkill.

“You have proof? I mean, did you record any of this?” he asks, words rising in pitch.

“Yup. Just about all of it. Ani backed it all up. She's recorded everything from the first mission on as a safeguard in case the whole UCS program crashed.”

His pupils sort of narrow. He's thinking, fighting through whatever's going on inside so he can see, so he can sort through options. But he can't do it. Just can't. He leans back into the couch and I can see, can tell by that look, the look of euphoric emptiness, that he's not able to help. He's trying, but he just can't. Now when I actually need him, really need him to help me figure a way out of this, he's coming off of a high.

Have to think. Have to stay focused. We have to run. But that destroys Ani, her future, everything. Don't have much time, either. The apartment here is in Kelly's name, her parents are doctors or something in Milford and they cover the rent. Not wanting their baby to be homeless, I guess. But they'll find us here soon enough. Have to come up with a plan.

“We have to go to Canada,” Ani says quietly. “See that guy who called you.”

“The guy from the paper?” I ask, trying to remember his name. Damn. “Tim, Thomas, shit. B, what's the name of your friend in Canada?”

B looks at me, smiles. “Todd, Todd Sevier from the
Montreal Standard
. He's a great guy,” B says, eyes off, out the window. “You should tell him everything. He'll cover the story, for sure.”

“Ratting out Tidewater is going to help me how, exactly, B? They're already trying to kill me.” I keep my hands clenched.

I look over to Ani, curled up around her laptop, and try not to think about how badly I'm ruining her life.

She says, “We have to get the word out there, Tyler. People have to know. This has to stop. The only way we can stop it is to go public.”

“You can stop them.” B's voice is a shadow of itself.

“By holding a big, neon target sign over my head?” I lower my voice. “Over her head? No thanks.”

“We have to. We can get asylum.” Ani's voice is taut, like a rubber band stretched too far.

“Asylum?” I say. “We're not refugees who lost our homes in a flood or something.”

“No, but we
are
seeking asylum, Tyler. We can't go to the cops here because the people trying to kill us can just waltz into the jail and shoot us in the head. They have our government's permission to do whatever the hell they want and no cop in the world can protect us. We are sort of the definition of asylum seekers.”

I don't want to go without her. Don't want to go anywhere without her. But I wish things were different. Wish there was a way to keep her safe.

“The border is too far. They'll catch us.”

“We need a distraction, time,” Ani says.

I say, “Can you look up how to declare refugee status in Canada?”

Her eyes widen, just a little, like a deer, then narrow, focus.

“We have to bring evidence, right, to Todd?” I ask.

“I've got plenty,” Ani answers from her position on the couch, eyes never leaving the screen as her fingers fly. “Already sent a teaser to the
Montreal Standard
and to the
Washington Post
, Associated Press and Reuters. They'll be fighting over who gets the rest. Hopefully one of them will be able to figure out how to keep us alive.”

Damn she's smart. If I live through this I am so going to marry her some day. Well, at least ask, anyway.

B closes his eyes. “Todd's a good guy, so good, he'll help you out if he can.”

He's what you could have been, B.

“It's not enough for us to go public, Tyler. We have to stop the program,” Ani says, voice quiet. “They're killing innocent people.”

They're killing terrorists, too. I think. Don't think, don't defend Rick now. Can't defend someone who wants to kill me, who kills children. She's right. Mind racing through different options. Different ways to get to Rick before he gets to us. Hard. “Money?”

“Working on that.” Her voice lowers. “I started looking into a way to stop the cash flow to the program a while ago. Or at least stop Rick from profiting off of it.”

“Any luck?” I ask, angling myself against the kitchen counter so I can face her while I eat.

“I'm not sure if freezing or even emptying their accounts is going to do much to stop the program from running.” Ani reaches for her glass.

“Stop the money, stop the program,” B adds, making a sick, anguished noise. Testament to the boy that's only half here.

“No,” I say, ready to vomit. Hate this. Hate seeing him like this. “Rick's program is just one very small piece of Haranco. Haranco itself is just an offshoot of Tidewater. Tidewater has hundreds of companies. If Haranco needed money, they would just borrow from one of their other companies to keep it going.”

Ani puts down her glass. “But if we managed to freeze Haranco's assets then we would definitely get their attention. And freezing Rick's accounts might trip him up enough to slow him down, keep him from finding us so fast.”

“How close are you to being able to cut off their cash flow?” I ask.

“Not very.”

“No,” I say. “There's an easier way to stop the program, and permanently.”

They both look up at me.

“The drones,” Ani answers for me, that brilliant, sexy smile spreading across her heart-shaped face. “We can crash the drones.”

“Has he written you out yet?” I ask.

“He can try,” she answers, fingers dancing over her keyboard. “But it's my program, and I gave it a virus. He can't keep me out for long.”

“Why did you give your own program a virus?” Brandon asks.

“So I'll always have access. I can't imagine writing a program and then have someone else shut me out. I do it for everything I write, it's like keeping a safety line open just for me. A backdoor.”

“Find an empty field, check the satellites. Just make sure you don't hit anyone,” I add. Feeling just a little like we might survive this, it might all come out OK. “Can we do it from your laptop, though? Don't we need to use the Universal Control System?” I walk over to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

“I can do it from my laptop. Because I can get into the UCS from there.” She taps some more keys. “Do you think we can make it into Canada?”

“They're going to be looking at the border crossings, right? And we need passports,” I say eventually.

“We'll need passports,” she says.

“Shit. Mine's at home. They're waiting for me to go home, I'm pretty sure,” I say, trying to keep my anger down. Just scared, I guess.

“I have a passport,” B says, eyes still closed as he wraps a blanket up around his shoulders. “Need it since they keep taking away my fucking license. Take mine, get into the country, then declare refugee status.”

I shrug. We look enough alike, especially in those pictures, to pull it off, probably, but, “They'll be looking for any MacCandless. The second I cross, it'll send up some red flag and I'm sure I'll be dragged out back and shot or something. Besides, they'll be looking for her, too, and a MacCandless and a Bagdorian crossing into Canada at the same time… we'll be toast.”

“Not if you declare refugee status at the border, man.”

“Can't.” Ani calls in from the other room, reading off the screen of her laptop, I'm sure. “The laws have changed. You can't declare refugee status at a land border crossing, only at a point of entry from the air or water.”

“Shit,” I say, mouth full, stomach trembling. “So that means what, we'd have to either fly in or take a boat? We can't fly, they'll never let us on a plane.”

“The high-speed ferries out of Maine are closed for the season,” Ani says quietly as her fingers pound the keys.

I take a swig of soda. “Can you ask for refugee status once you're in the country, though? I mean, you just have to get in, right?”

Ani checks. “Yes, once you're in you can, but your case will apparently be frowned upon if you enter the country with fake documents.”

“We can roll in by kayak,” I say, remembering our old family vacations in northern Vermont.

“What?” B asks.

“Lake Memphremagog, B, remember, we could go by boat. If the border patrol boats catch us, no big deal, we have real papers and we can ask for refugee status by boat, right?”

Ani's face brightens as she Googles. “Yeah, it's the only water crossing anywhere nearby. We can pop on a charter or something.”

“No, the pilot will phone in our IDs when we step on the boat.” I don't like the idea of going to Canada to bring Rick down. It's like throwing a rock then hiding behind your mom's legs, counting on her to protect you. But still, it's what we've got. Stay here and we're hit. “Do you have a passport?”

“No,” she says quietly. “But I've got other forms of ID for once we get in.”

“Remember when you, me and Dad kayaked out to that island on the lake? We got pulled over by border patrol, they helped us navigate our way back to the house?” I ask B, remembering being small and afraid, sitting in my dad's lap as he and B paddled around, water splashing up in my face.

“Yeah,” he says, eyes distant.

“It'll be cold. But that's how we'll go,” I say, voice firm. “We borrow a kayak, get in, find Todd, then ask for refugee status. Blow up Rick's program.”

“And hope they don't catch you,” B adds, voice a little unsteady.

“Yeah, and hope they don't catch us.” I take a big bite of sandwich. “Well, and that the lake isn't frozen yet.”

I look at B. He looks panicked, too. Really? Shit's coming to the breaking point and they both think that I'm the one to figure this stuff out?

“Brandon,” I say. “Does Kelly have a car?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Right, well, when she gets home, I want you guys to get into her car, OK? Go someplace safe. I won't be able to think straight if I think that they could come after you.” I hand him my bank card. “Drive south, west? I don't know, just anywhere but here. Find a new place, start over, someplace warm.” He needs to get away from Kelly, she's no good. But I need him to drive far away. To get away before Rick finds him.

He stares at me. Just stares at me. Like he doesn't really see.

“No, you know what?” I say. “Go to the train station. Buy like six different tickets on like six different trains and then take a car. Then go by car someplace far away and I'll email you when we get across the border, OK?” He's still just staring. “B, you hear me? You listening?”

“Yeah.” His voice floats away. “But it won't work. That'll buy you an hour or two, sure, but you need at least six, probably more like eight. Their technology is too good, Ty, they'll know it's a decoy.”

I take B's phone off of the coffee table and walk into the bedroom to call Peanut and Alpha. Have to try. Have to at least give it a shot.

 

We head down to the street. B gave me his and Kelly's entire savings back at the apartment before we left. I don't want to know exactly how it came to be that they had four grand hiding in their mattress, but I take the money all the same because I have to. Ani and I are wearing like three thousand layers of clothes. Not too cold now in New Haven, but by the time we get to Vermont, out on the water, it's going to be absolutely freezing. Ani left twenty minutes ago, going to meet her roommate Christy at a coffee shop nearby, where she arranged to pick up Christy's car. She's going to let us borrow her car in exchange for Ani “fixing” her grade in organic chemistry. Not a bad girl, Christy. Kinda stuck up, but it works out for us that she doesn't really care about her stuff. Scary that Christy wants to be a doctor.

B keeps pumping me full of information, giving me more clothes, more money, shoving his passport at me just in case, telling me who to talk to, what to say.

Just for a second I forget about the marks on his arm, about the full bottle in the medicine cabinet, and he's the brother he once was. Makes my heart feel three times as big. Then he looks up at me and we both remember and I have to push it all back down again so I can focus. So I can survive this.

But I can't survive this, really. There's like no chance and he's here now and I say, “Why aren't you taking the medicine, B? You told me, you've always told me that you wanted to get better, to beat this. Now you're sick and maybe even dying and now people are trying to kill me and still you're sticking that shit up your arm.”

His face drops, like a feather, like a boulder. “You have to understand, Ty, how hard it is. It's like the more I want to beat it, the more I need it. I've tried so hard, so fucking hard, and still it's winning.”

“It's not a person, it's a drug! A disease, sure, but you are the one who's still choosing to do it. And what was that in there? I'm trying to figure out how to stop people from killing me and you're high?” My voice rises up like molten stone, “I needed you. I've always needed you and you just leave me to watch as you kill yourself. Expect me to sit back and watch. There's nothing I can do, is there? Nothing. I can't make you better, can't make you love me again.”

“You're not being fair.” He shakes his head, face red, bottom jaw jutting out.

“I'm not trying to be fair, Brandon, I'm trying to be your brother.” My throat hurts, my head hurts, eyes hurt.