Willy pulled him into a bear hug. “Course. Only don’t stay away anymore, okay? You know I’m not the sharpest, and I don’t want to forget that ugly mug of yours.”
They separated, and Willy was about to go when Ford blurted, “Does Plum ever come by?”
Willy paused, meeting Ford’s eyes with a frank, unblinking glance. “Who?”
“Plum. One of James’s girlfriends?”
Willy shook his head back and forth slowly, eyes not leaving Ford’s. “Name’s not familiar. Course, as we were saying, your brother.” He elbowed Ford. “Quite a Casanova.”
Looking into Willy’s wide, smiling face, Ford’s vision dimmed and kept going, the darkness encroaching from around the edges and moving toward the center until Sadie couldn’t see anything.
As his mind blacked out, it flooded with a roar of such force it seemed to have mass and density, some thick, heavy substance that filled every corner, every gap, taking all the available air. The space that had seemed infinite only heartbeats ago now shrank to nothing, trapping Sadie inside of it.
The air was crushed out of her lungs. She gasped for breath and felt herself choking as though she was drowning, flailing. I have to get out of here, she thought, panicked. I have to escape. The darkness was suffocating her, pulling her in like a constricting vacuum, twisting the breath, the life, out of her.What was happening, what was this sensation, what—
Anger, she thought, claiming her first emotion.
Everything went black.
CHAPTER 6
Sadie awoke to a guy’s voice saying, “I was at work all day. I told you, babe.”
“Sorry, I must have forgotten,” a girl answered. “I figured since it was Sunday—
“Overtime,” the guy interrupted. “Day shift, noon to eight P.M.”
Sadie, waking fully, recognized the guy’s voice as Ford’s. She opened her eyes and saw a living room. And a girl. Or at least her nose, since the conversation was being whispered while they kissed.
All the signals Sadie was getting from Ford felt subdued, as though everything was covered in a layer of dust. It was more all-encompassing than the dimness before, making not just his vision but his voice seem muffled.
Was it because she’d passed out? Sadie recalled Catrina at lunch discussing how “Syncsleep”—moments when the Minder’s consciousness got overloaded and temporarily withdrew from Syncopy—was common during the first few days of Syncopy. “It usually happens at times of intense emotion for your Subject, distracting you so much you forget to breathe.”
Intense emotion, Sadie repeated and shuddered at the memory of the clawing, suffocating darkness of his anger.
If it was after eight now, she’d been in Syncsleep for at least four hours. During that time, Ford had been at work doing—
He hadn’t been at work, she realized, at least not when she was awake. Which meant he was lying. To the person who was presumably his girlfriend—Cali, Sadie remembered, adding it to the list of his associates’ names in her mental notebook.
So you’re a liar, Ford Winter, she thought with a twinge of disgust, before reminding herself that she was supposed to be objective.
Maybe the lying accounted for the dusty quality of his thoughts, a sort of film between him and reality. Tying it in with the way things dimmed when someone was bluffing, she added Lying interferes with vision to her mental notebook.
Cali was sitting on the arm of the sofa, with Ford standing between her legs. He pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead. Her eyes closed, but his stayed open, giving Sadie a chance to look around.
The room they were in was small, with a single window in the same wall as the front door. The walls were light blue, the carpeting beige. An old wooden footlocker served as a coffee table, which, with the navy slipcovered sofa, gave the room a sort of a nautical feeling. Behind the couch was a short hallway that led, presumably, to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The wall facing the couch had a wide arch opening into the kitchen, and half of a bricked-up fireplace mantel. The other half, along with part of the plaster medallion in the ceiling, disappeared into the wall.
Between the arch and the fireplace hung a medium-sized television showing Cookie Wars Deluxe, the picture completely framed with Ad-Spaces. Like everyone in their neighborhood, Sadie’s parents paid to outsource their ad watching to other people so their content was always ad-free. Intellectually she understood that gave other people the chance to watch extra ads in exchange for less expensive television, but she’d never considered what that really meant until now. The Winters’ television screen was so crowded with Ad-Spaces that it took Sadie a moment to find the small rectangle showing Team Chocolate Chip going up against Team Snickerdoodle in the Cookie Wars Championship among the promos.
Sadie was fascinated and had to suppress a momentary feeling of frustration when Cali pulled away from the kiss and Ford shifted his attention to her.
Cali was blond and pretty, although Sadie thought she would have been prettier with less makeup, less TanTerrific, and less of the unnatural glossiness that straightening tubes imparted to hair. Especially since studies suggested they caused cancer. She wore a white button-down shirt that strained over a white lace-edged bra.
Ford’s eyes focused on the bra as he curled a strand of the carefully straightened hair around his finger and said, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” That, at least, seemed true, because his vision didn’t get hazier. Sadie noticed there were cuts on his hand that hadn’t been there before. What had happened after she passed out?
Cali reached up and took his hand, moving it from her hair. “That’s okay. It gave me a chance to keep Lulu company.”
“Thanks, babe.” His hips rested between her legs, and his nose touched hers.
Cali started talking about plans for the rest of the week, and Ford’s mind filled with dots. They arranged themselves into a flurry of images—leaving the poker table, walking out of the Castle, staring at a bank machine screen that read INSUFFICIENT CREDIT. Bashing his hand against the wall next to it. Explains the new cuts, Sadie thought.
The dots got smaller as the memories went on, giving them a tense, brittle kind of clarity: him opening his wallet and painstakingly counting out bills—ones mostly, a few fives and tens, presumably his poker winnings—ending with only two singles left over. Dropping the wad of bills into a mailbox with a notice next to it that read, ALL RENT MUST BE PAID IN FULL BY 8 A.M. EVERY MONDAY OR TENANT WILL FACE IMMEDIATE EVICTION, with DON’T EVEN THINK OF ASKING FOR AN EXTENSION—THE LANDLORD, written in black pen along the bottom.
“So you’re good with that?” Cali asked.
Sadie had been listening while she watched Ford’s memories, but based on the way all the dots suddenly vanished and the sounds combined into a low hum, she realized he hadn’t heard anything Cali was saying.
He nodded anyway. “Totally. Whatever works for you, works for me.”
Why not just ask what she’s talking about? Sadie wondered. It would be so simple.
“You’re the best,” Cali said, bringing her lips to his.
He’s not, Sadie wanted to tell her. Ask him what he just said yes to.
“No, you’re the best,” he told Cali.
She rubbed his nose with hers. “No, you are.”
Sadie groaned in frustration.
From the couch behind them a high-pitched voice said, “Agree to disagree. I’m the best. And now that we have that settled, can you please stop? I’m only eleven and whatever you’re doing is far above my pay grade.”