Kenny pedaled like a maniac. He hadn’t ridden his bike in years. But it was all part of the plan. Low-fi. Off-line. No signals, no tracers. He wobbled at first but soon he had momentum, and muscle memory took over. He sailed through the traffic and found the back roads.
The plan was to go to the Oak Street Library southside. Far from their homes, unchecked internet access, no sign-ups, no log-ons. One of the last anonymous ports of entry they could think of. Every car Kenny passed made him flinch. Would this be the one to suddenly swerve, unbidden, running him off the road and into a ditch?
He linked finally onto the bike trails along the river and looked up, seeing the sun come in and out of view through the leaves. He felt alive and free and hopeful.
Miles away he came onto the roads, winding through a wooded back street until the Oak Street Library came into view. He kept waiting for something to happen—a transformer to suddenly surge and blow as he passed. A light to magically switch from red to green as he pedaled toward his own green light, sending traffic at full speed into him. It was all wired, available.
But he pulled up safely to the library, and the doors were old-school, not even automatic. The building was comfortably dilapidated. The signs in the kids section were cut out of construction paper. He could almost smell the Elmer’s glue like paradise.
He had a panicked thought. What if the computers were so old they didn’t even have a USB port? But they did. He pushed in the flash drive and copied the virus over, then launched it, following the steps Charlie and Peter had carefully laid out for him. Code spun on the screen rapidly. It was born. It was dividing and growing. Nothing about this birth was beautiful or sacred. But it was alive, and all he could do was hope.
Kurt Ellers watched the video. He was alone in the locker room, towel around his waist. He’d come to work out instead of going to geometry. When he got out of the shower, his phone was buzzing. The video was there, the one he’d feared since his run-in with Charlie Lake yesterday. How would you feel? If someone posted something secret about you? Kurt didn’t know what the video would be, exactly, but he knew what it would show. And now it was real.
His first reaction was panic. How far had it spread? Who had seen it? What would his dad say? He thought of Caitlyn.
Kurt watched the video, fascinated. He hated certain things about it. He was fat, over his slabs of muscle. He had manhandles like an old man. That was inevitable—he ate like a beast to play like a beast. Other parts of the video were better than he would have guessed. The moment wasn’t awkward or forced. It was deep and true. The passion was real. He loved the person in it. They’d met at conversion therapy. Kurt’s father had told him he’d rather have a dead son than a gay son. Dan’s father had offered to beat the gay out of him. Having pricks for fathers was their first bond.
Then Kurt realized all that would be over now. No more camps, no more preachers licking their lips as they told him to purify his thoughts. No more Seroquel or Prozac to fix his “distorted thinking.” No more lies.
There was no hiding from this.
It was a bomb in the dollhouse of his life.
He would go to Caitlyn’s party tonight. Of course he knew about it. She thought she could erase him just like that? Her boyfriend of three years just swept aside? He would do the one thing no one expected. He would show up, head held high. Not to claim Caitlyn. That was over. No, he would walk in because he was bigger and stronger than everyone else. And if anyone didn’t like it, he would bring the pain. As if to say, Sorry, motherfuckers. Some things haven’t changed.
Kurt recognized the name of the feeling that had come to him, once the shock and fear had worn off. It was liberation.
Tim was pushing Mary around, just before the call came on his phone. “You’re letting him make a fool of you.”
“Who?”
“You know who. Those posters. You put up, what, two? He’s got a hundred.”
“You’re obsessed.”
Tim smacked her hard across the face. “There is no escape plan. You are with me forever. If you so much as look at him again, I will tell everyone what your family did.”
“You were there, too.”
“I was a kid. Your parents were there, not mine. Your lawyer, not mine. Bribing police. Covering up their precious golden boy’s dead reputation. I can destroy your whole world.”
“I’m leaving you. I don’t care what you do.”
“I will hurt you, Mary. In so many ways.”
That’s when his phone rang. He glanced down and saw his father’s office line. “Don’t go anywhere.” Tim poked a finger into her ribs. She grimaced with pain.
His listened to his dad’s rushed voice and closed his eyes. Tim always knew this day might come. He’d heard bits and pieces over the years as his parents fought. They spoke in hushed codes, but he’d figured out enough: the money problems, stealing from the bank, the fear of getting caught. But now it was real: his dad was telling him to prepare.
His dad spoke quickly: Yes, it was happening.… Yes, they’d planned for this.… No, it couldn’t be on the phone. Especially not on the phone. It was hard to hear his dad like this: he was tall, sturdily built with a large belly and broad shoulders, a deep, sonorous Texas voice, a banker-pioneer. Class and grit, all in one. It was hard to hear him in a situation he couldn’t totally control.
Still, there’d be no shame in his dad going to prison. He wasn’t the first CEO behind bars and he wouldn’t be the last. His dad used to say, “No one gets rich without cutting a few corners.” Rules were for little people. You planned. You took calculated risks.
So Tim went to meet his dad in a shady part of the city, and Tim was ready to do whatever was asked of him. He would be the man of the house now. His parents would try to flee. Tim would have to take care of his sister, and his mom, too, if a deal was ultimately cut to keep her free. But he couldn’t help the creeping fear—what if he couldn’t become his father? What if the world had changed and the old ways didn’t work anymore? What then? Those were the only ways he knew.
He parked his Porsche blocks from where his dad told him and walked down a strip of pawnshops and payday lenders. Smart choice. His parents would probably leave right from here. Skip town and go where?… Mexico? Cayman? If they pulled it off, Tim might never see them again. A few locals stared at him, but he was big and tough and didn’t give a shit and projected that, so he was left alone. He rounded the buildings into the alleyway and waited for his dad. But the people who came from the open end of the alley a few moments later weren’t with his father. And they certainly weren’t Feds either. Tim didn’t know whom the fuck they were with.
There were three of them, with lead pipes, wearing hooded robes and white porcelain masks.