“You’re alive.” That’s the first thing she says to me.
“Alive and well,” I say.
“You look tired,” she says.
That means Mother has remotely turned on my phone’s camera. She’s watching me, but I cannot see her. Knowing this, I do not change my facial expression at all. I will allow my face to reflect the feelings I want her to see, nothing more or less.
“I am tired. It’s been a difficult few days,” I say.
“We have a bird down,” she says.
“I know.”
“You were supposed to be on that helicopter, yet you’re alive and others are not,” Mother says.
“I imagine you have questions you want to ask me.”
“I’m not going to ask. You can tell me what you want me to know.”
It’s possible Mother already knows what happened during the crash, and she wants me to incriminate myself. It’s also possible that she doesn’t know, and she’s digging for information. I decide to stay as close to the truth as I can.
“I saw the helicopter go down,” I say. “I watched it crash, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
Technically true.
“We sent a team out there,” Mother says. “Do you know what they found?”
“A mess.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
A moment later my screen flashes and Mother’s image appears on the phone.
She’s wearing a dark gray business suit and the same stylish glasses I saw before. Beneath them, her eyes are tight with rage.
“Let me explain how this looks from my side of the board,” she says. “I get a call from Father telling me that you are walking toward the helicopter. My next call is from our tech-surveillance people informing me that a 911 operator is reporting smoke rising above a river in southern Pennsylvania. And this helicopter I sent—”
She hesitates for a moment, steadying herself before continuing.
“This helicopter I sent to pick you up and bring you home is a burning hulk on the ground. And the man—”
Her voice cracks.
“The man who was my partner of over ten years was on that helicopter. The man who built The Program with me, the one who educated you and treated you like his own son. That man disappeared in the burning wreckage of that helicopter. So you might imagine that I am upset, Zach. More upset than I have ever been, and I have been quite upset in my time.”
She waits, watching me, her eyes intense even through the screen.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
I show her sadness. It’s not difficult to do. There is a part of me that is legitimately upset over what has happened.
“Are you sorry because you were involved, or are you sorry for my loss?”
Don’t lie to her. Stay as close to the truth as possible.
“I’m sorry for both, Mother.”
“So you were on the helicopter,” she says.
“Yes.”
“I see,” she says. She adjusts her glasses. “It was you who brought down the helicopter.”
“Not directly.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Father gave the order for me to be drugged, and I reacted. There was a fight, one of the soldiers’ guns went off, and the pilot was killed. It was unintentional.”
“Why would he drug you?”
“He said he didn’t trust me, and he wouldn’t take me to you until he’d questioned me himself.”
“That is highly unusual,” Mother says.
“So you didn’t order it?”
“I did not.”
I sense an opening. This time I show her my anger, turning the energy of the conversation back on her.
“Let me tell you how things look from my side of the board, Mother. You send Father to pick me up, and he makes a move to capture me. I’m the one who has questions here. I’m the one who feels betrayed.”
“Whatever your feelings, you let your Father die in that wreck.”
“I tried to save him,” I say. “It wasn’t possible.”
“Enough,” Mother says. Her face turns to stone. “Your behavior is unforgivable.”
“This is not what I wanted, Mother.”
I want to find my father.
“I want to come home,” I say. “But I need to know that what happened with Father won’t happen again.”
“Are you negotiating with me?”
“I’m asking for your protection.”
Mother crosses her arms and shakes her head. “You think you still have options, but you’re wrong. You don’t have options anymore.”
The sound of helicopter rotors in the distance, moving toward me.
The call has gone on longer than I intended. Mother has kept me talking long enough to divert resources in my direction.
“This was never a negotiation,” Mother says.
The sound of the helicopter gets louder above me.
“I gave you a chance to come in on your own power, but you hurt us. Badly. Whatever Father did, your actions are unforgivable. So now we’re coming for you, Zach. You’ve left us no choice.”
Us.
Why would Mother change pronouns? Who is she referring to?
“Good-bye, Mother.”
“For now,” she says.
I power down the phone and slip it into my pocket.
I have no options. That’s what Mother said.
But that’s not what she’s taught me. There are options, even in desperate circumstances. There are always options. To find them, I will need time.
So I run.