ROANOKE, VIRGINIA
Gail stood at the door of the small room above the garage where Steph had his computer. “Go say good night to the kids,” she told him.
“In a minute.”
“Now, Steph. Come on.”
He felt the tips of his fingers bristle. Why didn’t she understand how important this was? “Okay!” he said, with a pinch more irritation than was wise.
“What do you do in here?” she demanded. She wasn’t curious about the world the way he was.
“I told you. There’s stuff going on you wouldn’t believe.”
“The New World Order, Steph?” she said. Her voice dripping with sarcasm. Sometimes she talked to him like he was an idiot.
He took a deep breath. Delusion is power. Apathy is an opiate necessary for the deep state to operate unobserved and out in the open.
“You don’t know, Gail. These people in power, they do things. Messing with kids. I mean people we’ve heard of.”
“You mean people we’ve met?”
“No. You don’t understand. People in politics. People around the president. People who think they’re above the law. But they’re wrong. People are on to them. People are watching.”
She had her hands on her hips and she was looking at him like he was one of the kids after they had painted the cat with permanent marker.
“We’re watching them. And we’re going to catch them.”
“From the room above the garage?”
Someday he would have to sit her down and show her.
“If all that is true, you need to do more than sit in the garage,” Gail said.
She was right, he realized. Don’t just sit here. Find out for yourself. Track down the truth. Get the proof everyone needed. Then the world would see. America would know. He would be recognized. And Gail would see he was a patriot, not a fool.