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When I get home, the house is quiet. Mom’s not back from work yet. I go straight to my room, fall on my knees under the desk and pull out one of the CPUs. I unplug all the cables and carry the metal box to the opposite end of the room, where there’s another electric plug. I go back and forth, snatching a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and cables out of my stockpile.
I boot the machine by itself, isolated from the other computers to avoid cross-contamination. When it comes up with no problems, I still don’t trust it. With quick keystrokes and mouse clicks, I fly from one scanning routine to another. After one hour of scouring, using programs written by me and others, I come up empty. There is no trace of any malicious code.
Exhausted, I sit cross-legged on the floor in the deep silence, my back curved, my chin touching my chest. I feel beaten and vulnerable. My eyes lock on an old Cheerio that lies on the floor. For a hair’s breadth, my mind goes blank.
Sensing the wasteland of my thoughtless mind, shadows lurk, stalk—like lions crouched amid tall, golden grass. I’ve become a sitting duck. As a trained response, adrenaline explodes inside me and gets my heart hammering. I smell the threat, sense the hunger, and my own fear threatening to paralyze me.
Stand up.
Breathe.
Bugs Bunny.
Get to work.
I become a moving target—my instincts razor sharp, the product of a lifetime fending off countless assaults. In a frenzy, I check the rest of the computers in the same fashion. When I finish, my frustration is even greater than before. I still have no idea how IgNiTe managed to bombard me with those messages.
I know what you are. I know what you are.
The words resonate with me and I get hung up on a particular one. “What.” Not “who you are” but “what you are.”
What did they mean? Is it possible that I’m not ...? No! I shake my head, unwilling to take any guesses, desperate to find out what exactly IgNiTe is talking about. Could they be aware of the secret I’ve so carefully guarded all these years? Or is this just some big coincidence? Because it seems unthinkable that they would have an answer to the one question that has obscured my entire life.
But what if they do? Am I foolish enough to hope they can expel the shadows living inside my brain? What if there’s a cure? There’s nothing I want more than to be free of them, than to live without fear.
My head hangs low again, aware that these conjectures are all part of my madness. Because what else could I be but barking mad? The puzzle never ends. How much of my life is real? How much is a product of insanity? Because the truth is: demons don’t exist and possession and exorcism only happen in the movies.
Psychosis on the other hand ... they have medication for that.
***
NOT CARING ANYMORE whether my system blows up or gets hijacked again, I connect everything the way it’s supposed to be and get back online. I don’t dare go on the H-Loop today. I’m not in the mood, anyhow, so I decide to check my email instead. I open the inbox. A solitary message awaits.
My heart freezes.
From: IgNiTe
Subject: You are NOT the only one
The mouse pointer hovers over the message. There are no attachments that could contain dangerous files, so I open it. In the body of the message, one simple sentence stares at me in bold and italic letters.
Watch the State of the Union Address.
9:21, 25:58, 43:07...
What the ... ?
This game isn’t funny. If Xave is behind this new messed-up prank, I’ll kick him so hard he won’t live to spread his seed. My fingers pound the search words into the web browser. When I hit enter, the first listing is a video of the most recent State of the Union Address by President J.P. Helms.
I click on it. It’s one hour and fifteen minutes long.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I haven’t slept in thirty-five hours. If I play along with this ridiculous game, I’ll be drooling over my keyboard in two minutes flat. Forget it. If I’m gonna sleep, I’ll do it in the comfort of my bed. I’ll get lost in my dreams, where the shadows can’t reach me.
The fact that I’m safe when the sandman whisks me away is proof that I am, indeed, off my rocker, because if there was something living in my brain, wouldn’t nap time be the perfect time for it to attack me? But what do I know? Maybe dreams are too fluid for the shadows to get a hold of them. Besides, I’ve trained myself to fall asleep in five seconds flat with music playing in the background to help my mind maintain a base level of activity.
With one longing, backward glance at my fluffy pillow, I abandon the idea. As much as I’d like to forget about IgNiTe and Xave and their games, they’ve trapped me in their web. I’m a helpless fly.
You are NOT the only one.
I need to know what this is about. And if, maybe, there are others who feel invaded, like a house occupied by a squatter.
I click play.
The president stands in the foreground. The Speaker of the House and vice-president sit behind him, looking as bored as I feel. President Helms talks about the economy, his stately face powdered to perfection, his salt-and-pepper hair as pristine as always.
Yawn.
Blink.
“Nope, don’t care about joining your workforce, Mr. Helms.” My words slur. “Unless you’re hiring hackers who get hacked.”
I prop my chin on my hands. The president’s words stop making sense. They don’t really register.
“Our country ... deficit ... committee ...”
My eyelids close for a few seconds. Then they open.
“Congress ...”
Eyes close again for long, long, long seconds.
Semi-blink.
“Approve ...”
Dreams.
***
SOMETHING SHATTERS. I jump to my feet, look around. I’ve fallen asleep in front of the computer. The screensaver flashes pictures of road bikes. Slobber shines on the desk. Gross. I’m looking around for something to clean it when I remember the sound that woke me.
Maybe Mom’s home. I step out of my bedroom and shuffle through the hall. I peek in her room. She’s not there. Rubbing my eyes, I head for the living room. Mom likes to watch the evening news after a quick dinner.
I find her sitting at the edge of the sofa, broken glass at her feet and a large wine splotch on the floor. Her eyes are locked on the TV. She’s shaking all over. I follow her gaze. The headline at the bottom of the screen reads: “Doctor found murdered in his home.” The frame is frozen. I look back at Mom. She holds the remote in her hand. Why did she pause it? My eyes bounce back to the TV. Above the headline, the picture of a familiar-looking man stares at me.
Puzzled, I step into the living room, trying to figure out where I’ve seen him. A vague recollection flashes through my memory.
“Oh, my God! I think that’s Luke’s dad,” I say.
I don’t recall Mom ever meeting him, but maybe she did. She attended a few PTO meetings during my early school years. Even if she knew him, though, why does she look so stricken?
“Mom?”
Her head turns my way, but she continues to stare at the screen. Then she blinks very slowly, and when her eyes open, she’s looking at me, lips trembling. A single tear spills and runs down her cheek.
“It’s him.” Her voice is a shaky murmur, barely audible.
“Who?” What is she talking about?
“That’s the man that took Max,” she says. Tears fall freely now, making her cheeks shine.
“Wait.” I look back at the TV. The word “Doctor” seems to blink at me. My eyes drift to the small print under the main headline: “Dr. Peter Smith, Seattle top OB/GYN and fertility doctor, brutally murdered.” Smith ... Luke’s last name.
Mom leaves the couch and walks in my direction. “It’s him. It’s Ernest Dunn.”
I stare at the TV, a slight tremor starting in my knees. “No, Mom.” I shake my head. “It says Dr. Peter Smith. I think you’re confused.”
She’s standing right in front of me, her blue eyes huge and fierce. “I would recognize his face in the pits of hell. It is him!” she says, the words hissing through her clenched teeth.
My heart pounds like an angry fist against a locked door. “Mom, it’s been sixteen years. Maybe you—”
“NO!” she yells—startling me—then points a finger at the TV, even as her eyes drill into mine like I’m the enemy, like I’m the one standing in the way of something monumental. “That man is Dr. Dunn. That man took Max from me.”
She can’t be right. She can’t! There’s nothing distinctive about this man’s face. Nothing. He looks like any overweight, balding man out there: round and soft and doughy. He’s forgettable ... so unlike Luke. I bite my tongue and taste deceit.
Mom’s hands drift upward and grip my shoulders. “Marcela, who’s Luke?” Her bottom lip trembles and her voice breaks at the name, heavy with something that sounds very much like hope, like a creature I’d thought extinct in her world.
“H-he’s nobody.”
“Marcela!” Mom’s nails dig into my shoulders as she begins to shake me. “Who. Is. Luke?” Her tone is desperate, maniacal.
He’s nobody.
He’s nobody.
He’s nobody.
“What does he look like?” she demands.
A current of frigid air travels from Mom’s stiff fingers down my back. My spine freezes, shatters into a million pieces, and I feel I could crumble.
Some part of me has always known this. Luke’s blond hair, gold-specked blue eyes, angular nose ... so much like Mom. He looks just like her and I’ve always pushed the knowledge away. It’s the reason his flirtatious advances have always bothered me, the reason my stomach churned when he asked me out.
Luke is Max.
Luke is my brother!
I stagger backward, head spinning.
“Who’s Luke?” Mom asks again, her nails like claws. I knock her arms away in one swift motion and take another step back.
“It’s Max. It has to be Max,” she says. Life floods her gaze. Suddenly, her eyes don’t look empty and distant the way they have all these years, the way they greet me every time I walk in the room. They have fire in them now.
The burst of light, this flash of immeasurable hope, hurts me deep inside. I’ve been here all along. Was I not worth a little bit of this radiance?
My chest feels like a too-large cage for my shriveling heart.
Pain.
“Marcela, it’s Max, isn’t it?”
Yes, your son.
My ears ring and I take another step back.
My brother.
“Where are you going? Wait!” Mom’s loud command makes me realize I’m running, headed for the door. I burst outside into an afternoon that has started to blend with the night colors.
Gray. Dark. Blue.
The wind blows in my face. The motorbike hums as I speed away from home. How did I get here?
Stop. Get off the bike.
I make it as far as the wooded area where Xave and I crashed last night. Almost out of control, I drive off the shoulder, between two bushes and into a small clearing. The bike wobbles. I kill the engine and jump off, letting it drop to the ground. Tottering forward for a few steps, my legs give out and I fall to my knees.
My chest pumps furiously. Shadows lurk and it takes all my strength not to succumb to their attack. My brother is alive. I stare at my hands. They’re shaking with the effort of keeping this upheaval from triggering another attack.
Luke is my brother and the knowledge threatens to unravel me, like a wool sweater without the final stitch.
He’s been here all along, slipping in and out of our notice, grazing the fringe of our somber existence but never quite touching it. Why? It makes no sense. I always imagined him dead or miles and miles away. Instead that man, that sadist, was raising him right under our noses, taunting us. The sick bastard! To get away with such a monstrous crime. How?!
I slam my fists against the ground, trying to channel the tsunami of emotions that is washing over me. I feel cheated, fooled ... replaced. Just like that.
Anger against Mom takes center stage in my private storm. I can only imagine what’s going through her mind now, how new, exhilarated thoughts are quickly erasing any trace of me. Clenching my jaw, I let my anger bulldoze the pain that threatens to grip me by the throat. My teeth audibly grind and I feel as if my skull will split in two.
Darkness descends over me, obscuring the world.
Get up! Do something!
I spring to my feet, my eyes darting in all directions.
Rocks. Ants. Wild flowers.
My thoughts shift, hop, morph. They become everything and anything that makes me forget why I’m trying to hide. I take a deep breath. The shadows retreat, like fog being sucked into a giant vacuum cleaner. My jaw relaxes and control slowly returns.
I straddle my bike and ride out of the patch of wood. I drive slowly, reading the street signs and spelling their names. All thoughts of Mom and Luke fade into the background. I’m good at ignoring monsters that I’d rather slip under the rug. As their images grow fainter, Mom seems to become nothing but a vague specter. She feels more absent than ever. Lost.
My heart seizes. I was never meant to have a family anyway.