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Jane and John couldn’t wait for the North Pole. Every morning they blabbed on the stream, and all the nicies agreed. One by one, they confessed their excitement that always ended in hugs and high fives and sometimes tears. BG deserved a Nobel.
Arf groaned.
He lay on his side with his laptop against the wall. Ryder had nodded off, dreaming about elephant cages and Arctic wind. He woke up staring at the top bunk.
Christmas was a week away.
The phone had been quiet. No maps or notes, no directions on what to do. But he had a plan. First, they were going to find Ronin. It didn’t matter what the phone said, they needed to find him before a new rack of antlers was on the dining room wall.
Once they found him, they would free him as soon as the drones shut down at four o’clock. They could have winter gear ready and make their escape. That would give them an hour before anyone would notice. He didn’t know where they would go, but they could use the phone to film what they were doing and upload the truth. If they were caught, the world would know what happened to them.
And if he can really fly... He cut that thought out. Reindeer only flew in dreams. But they don’t follow you around, either.
“I thought you were nice.”
Cherry was returning from the bathrooms, drying her hair with a towel. Ryder sat up, confused. He was about to answer when he realized she was pretending.
“I heard the rooms are bigger over there,” she said. “What’s it like?”
He thought about it. “It stinks.”
“Worse than this?” She nodded at their room.
“I’m thinking of going back,” he said. “All my clothes are there. Laptop, too. Want a tour?”
She hung the towel around her neck and shrugged. It was a good show. No one would believe it. She’d never said more than a hundred words to him before that. However, no one would really know why she was suddenly interested in him.
“Want to go, Arf?” he said.
“No.” He didn’t roll over. “I’ll wait.”
Ryder was struck with guilt. If they found Ronin, how could he leave Soup and Arf behind? Arf wasn’t going anywhere until Soup came back, and no one knew where he was. Still.
Cherry came back to the room an hour later.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to the other side. Bradley Cooper led them through the spacious foyer. A Christmas tree touched the ceiling, the branches heavy with ornaments and twinkling lights. She wrinkled her nose. The nicy smell greeted them before they got there. The hall was wider than the naughty wing and cleaner. The bedroom doors spaced farther apart.
No one was playing music.
“Did you see the stream?” he asked.
“No.”
BG wasn’t on it. He hadn’t been on the stream since coming back from the mountain. No one had seen him, either. Ryder wondered if he’d taken the helicopter over the mountain again.
“I’m on the end.” He pointed at the room.
Cherry’s lips were silently moving. She was counting her steps, visualizing what they saw on the phone. The lab took up all the space below them. She was keeping track of her steps in case they passed an entrance. But it was all just bedrooms.
The nicy board was mounted at the end of the hall. A meeting was scheduled for the afternoon. No one was listed for introspection. Nicies didn’t do introspection.
Only when you’re naughty.
The bedroom was exactly as he left it. The open laptop was asleep and the bed made. It smelled fresher than the hallway, but the clayey smell was seeping in. He wondered if he’d get accustomed to it like he had with Arf’s socks.
“Bigger than I thought.” She looked around the room, bounced her hand on the bed and pulled open a drawer. “Folded your clothes.”
“Someone did.”
She looked out the window, nodding to herself, making mental note of the naughty wing, whose window was whose. Ryder touched the laptop. The monitor woke up with a digital note in the corner.
“Look.”
Cherry peered over his shoulder and grunted. “There is only the present,” she read. “It’s Zen.”
“Maybe it’s Christmas present.”
“It means the past and future don’t exist, just this moment. As in now, not tomorrow.”
“As in don’t wait?”
She understood exactly what he was saying. Was their mystery helper telling them not to hesitate when the time came? Or stop waiting for a map?
“You going to stay here tonight?” she asked.
“No. Arf will get lonely.”
“He’s a big boy.”
“He is a big boy.” Ryder tucked the laptop under his arm. “That’s the tour. Want to see the bathrooms? The toilets are made of gold.”
She looked out the window one last time. They closed the door and followed Bradley Cooper. Unless there was a secret door in someone’s closet, there was no entrance to the basement lab. Still, she counted her steps as they passed the bedrooms.
One door was open.
There was no music or audio from the stream coming out. Cherry was looking down, counting. Ryder glanced inside as they passed. Someone was tending to a stack of folded laundry, placing shirts in an open drawer.
“Soup?”
Blond hair, scrawny build, that was him. But he didn’t turn around. Ryder stood in the doorway till he turned to grab a pile of shirts.
“Oh!” He jumped back. He smiled big and wide. “Scared me. What are you doing over here?”
Ryder was too stunned to answer. Cherry’s boots squeaked to a stop. Together, they stared. It was him, Soup the Nicy Hater, placing shirts with shirts and pants with pants and socks in orderly rows. Not a single one of them on the floor.
“Dude, the rooms are huge. We could play tennis in here.”
Dude? “Where have you been?”
“Just having a chat with Big Game. Everything makes sense now. You know what I mean, right? We talked about things and then, I don’t know, I just wasn’t bothered anymore.”
“For two days?”
“That how long?” He shrugged. “Went by fast.”
Ryder shook his head. The smell of nicy was strong. Like fresh-cooked pottery.
“You staying... over here?” Ryder asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Arf is worried.”
Soup paused. It was like he had to think about who he was talking about. “He’ll be all right. He goes tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Cherry said. “Where’s he going?”
He returned to organizing his underwear, patting them in place and smoothing out the wrinkles while he hummed a Christmas tune. Everything that had happened at Kringletown was bizarre.
This went over the top.
“Hey.” Ryder was startled by a hand on his arm. Jane smiled at him, perfectly. She turned her smile on Cherry. “Giving a tour?”
“No,” Ryder said.
Apparently that was funny. “Getting settled?”
“Hey, Jane. I love these.” Soup held up thick socks. One was green, the other red.
“You’re going to love the boots.”
He looked under the bed. His eyes grew wide. He held up a pair of waterproofs and smiled a smile Ryder had never seen on him. He was wearing a white shirt and dark pants.
The uniform.
“Don’t forget,” she said, “we’re meeting in the den for gear assignments. The Pole is a week away. You too.” She pinched Ryder.
So many thoughts streamed through his head. He couldn’t capture a single one.
“Did Ryder tell you about the hike?” she called into the room. “BG shorted us a coat. We took turns going without one, sort of a teamwork exercise. It worked out pretty well, I think. Don’t you?”
Ryder didn’t answer. Did she completely block out the part with Ronin? He felt woozy.
“Sounds constructive.” Soup stripped his bed and began remaking it, carefully tucking the corners.
“What’d you do to him?” Ryder muttered.
“It’s his best self,” she said adoringly. “He understands now.”
“That isn’t him.”
“If you strip away your shortcomings, are you still you?” She nodded. “We don’t know who we are until we look inward. And once we honestly do that, we put down the things we don’t need. We’re attached to who we think we are.”
Soup was whistling as he fluffed the pillows.
“Campbell is his true self now,” Jane said.
Ryder waited. Soup didn’t erupt. He was deep in a Christmas tune and tucking the bed corner. “Campbell?”
“Yeah?” he said.
Ryder stared. When he didn’t say anything, Soup waved him off like he was messing with him.
“This isn’t right.”
“That’s his name, Ryder. He reclaimed it. No more dark corners to hide from, no more suffering. He’s a good boy. He’s nice.”
Ryder walked off. He couldn’t look anymore. Something about the scene was disturbing. The hall was swimming around him.
“Don’t forget the meeting,” Jane called.
Cherry caught up to him. They followed the drones out of the wing and walked in silence. The name, the way he was dressed, the goofy smile and whistling. It was like he woke in an alternate reality. He didn’t even call her sweet Jane. But that wasn’t the worst part.
He’s not wearing the hearing aid.
***
Ryder needed air. Frigid, bone-chilling air.
The horses galloped along the fence, snow flipping off their hooves. His coat hung open, inviting winter inside. He welcomed the shivers.
How far would we have to go to escape? The other side of the mountain?
“It’s freezing.” Cherry huddled next to him, a scarf around her face. “You should stay in your nicy room tonight.”
“No.”
Even if there was a door labelled This way to the secret underground lab, he couldn’t stay there another minute. It was foul. It was wrong.
“What would I tell Arf?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“Just let him find out Soup was body-snatched by a nicy.”
“Body-snatched?”
“He wasn’t wearing his hearing aid! I know BG is a miracle worker and all, but he didn’t put a new ear in his head. You saw the way he was acting. That wasn’t Soup. That was Campbell.” He pointed at the nicy wing. “No one calls him Campbell, and you saw what happened—”
“Ryder.”
She put a hand on his arm. Bradley Cooper was grabbing all the footage and he didn’t care. Soup’s behavior could be explained, maybe. Not the hearing aid. BG couldn’t cure that, not in a day or two. Even if there was some medical breakthrough, it wouldn’t be seamless, not like that.
“Let’s go inside,” she said.
“They’ll come for you, too.”
They had to escape before introspection. He couldn’t stand seeing her like that. Neither would she. He couldn’t say it out loud. They were all turning nice.
“Why aren’t you on the list?” she said.
You’ve always been nice. BG said it, but Ryder was nothing like them. He wasn’t a good boy who did what he was told, so it couldn’t be true. So why aren’t I on the list?
Steel pails rattled in the breezeway. The horses waited at the fence. A large silhouette stepped out of one of the stalls. Ryder could barely feel his feet as he marched toward the barn. The old man ducked into the tack room. The door was still open when Ryder approached.
“Where did he go?” he said.
The room wasn’t big enough to hide him. Horses hung their long faces out of the stalls, mashing hay between rubbery lips.
“Where are you?”
Cherry grabbed him. “Don’t do this. We don’t need attention right now.”
He was suddenly red hot. Emotions boiled up from a deep and angry place. All the secrets and the old man was always in the shadows. Why wasn’t he on the stream? What was he doing in the cabin?
Ryder pounded on the barn doors, the ones that were locked, the room where Cherry had once visited, had seen cages big enough to house an elephant. His bones rattled. He kicked until his entire body hurt.
“Listen.” He put his ear to the door. “Hear that?”
Wump-wump-wump-wump-wump. Something mechanical was turning. He could feel it through the door. That sound wasn’t there before.
“Come on.” Cherry pulled with both hands.
The drones captured every second. BG was going to see it. He’d throw him in the nicy wing and lock the door this time. The old man appeared in the breezeway like he’d been there the entire time, watching. Ready to draw guns from his long coat.
“Is he in there?” Ryder said.
The old man worked his tongue beneath his bottom lip, pushing a lump of tobacco to the side. Brown specks littered his bushy white beard. He smelled like leather and hard work. He pushed a pair of sunglasses up his nose with the hand with missing fingers.
“Who are you?” Ryder said.
His emotions were running the show now. Ryder planted both hands in the old man’s midsection. He leaned in but hardly moved him. A grin wrinkled the scruffy white beard. There were traces of red through it like veins of iron.
The old man grabbed a halter off a hook and turned his back, limping stiffly away. He was almost around the corner when Ryder scooped a snowball off the breezeway and threw it.
It grazed the cowboy hat.
The old cowboy stopped. He spit in the snow. “You don’t understand. But you will.”
His voice sounded like words spun through a meat grinder. Fear finally dissolved his anger. Ryder felt the full force of paralyzing reality. Cherry grabbed his coat and dragged him out of the breezeway.
“Are you out of your mind?” she whispered in his ear.
Numbly, he followed her across the horseshoe. His emotions had taken charge, but now he understood just how foolish that was. The old man didn’t threaten him, didn’t even take a swing. It was his voice that raised gooseflesh on Ryder’s neck. It was the way it sounded.
Like it was inside him.
“We got to leave,” he said. “Tonight.”