Kate looked to the door behind him.
“We expected him to be crying, hysterical. Instead, he asked for a Coke, wondered if anyone had Candy Crush on their phone. Turns out, as we’d theorized, he’d been missing for a day or so. Lousy grandmother with sole custody had sent him to live with her cousin for the summer, who we suspect runs a meth trade and hadn’t reported him missing. Real nice family. When we delivered on the Coke, we asked him if he remembered where he’d been. His response: ‘Yeah. With the aliens.’ Since then, he’s been quite cooperative. Even allowing us to do thorough… inspections. We’ve tried to find out what’s been implanted inside him. But no scans, no X-rays, have found anything.”
Kate nodded once. “I’m going in.”
“It’s just you, Senator. You understand that. It’s why we have to move him down here. Because of what happens when he gets in those trances. We never know when he’s going to unleash. We have no choice but to limit visitors. And always only one person at a time, never for more than a minute.”
“Because he can cause people to kill each other. I know that. You can risk one life but not two. I understand.”
This time it was Flynn who leaned in. “He is a thirteen-year-old responsible for the death of more than seven hundred people in the metro area before we took him underground. I ask you again: are you sure—”
“Open the door.”
Flynn reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a badge, swiping it.
A light flashed beside the door, which responded with a loud release of internal locks.
“Good luck,” he said.
Kate opened the door, struggling at first with its weight. As she closed it behind her, she heard the jarring sound of the locks sealing her in.
The cavernous room reminded her immediately of the arcades from her youth, complete with the sounds of video games. Everything a teenage boy could ever ask for was crammed into the space. Two large-screen TVs were mounted on the wall, one displaying a violent game with people firing guns from tricked-out cars, the other showing The Godfather. Alongside a king-sized bed was a hot tub, against which two guitars leaned. Mounds of books lay everywhere, along with scattered magazines. Posters of naked women hung in glass frames.
And like a throne in the midst of the debauchery stood a dark blue La-Z-Boy recliner, in which sat a boy with an Xbox controller in his hands.
The smiled he flashed as she approached confirmed he was no child; she’d seen the same grin on the faces of senators and congressmen who would rather have her in their bed than on their committees. A smattering of pimples lined a face that one day might be considered enticing to women who liked reckless men. Gangly legs, hair in desperate need of a cut.
He opened to mouth to speak, but Kate beat him to the punch. “Ryan, I am Senator Kate Roseworth—”
“I know who you are.” He rapidly punched the controller, hissing a “yes!” under his breath as the screen exploded in a torrent of blood and bullets.
“I’d like to talk—”
“You took your dad’s senate seat when he retired,” he said, almost slamming the controller with his left thumb. “You’re William Roseworth’s aunt, but you don’t talk to your family because your mom believes in aliens.”
He paused the game and chuckled. “How are you feelin’ about that now?”
She’d been warned not to underestimate him. Brilliant, off-the-charts smart. Photographic memory. Spent entire days reading, and remembered every sentence.
“Ryan, you shouldn’t be down here. I’m going to change that—”
“No, I really should be down here. No one with my teenage angst should be able to make people kill one another. It’s why they sent you down here instead of Mr. Burns, and without a military escort. Because they know I could flick my middle finger and they’d unload their AK-47s on each other. They think sending a beautiful woman might make me stop. I wish I could. Don’t they know all boys my age can do well is drool and mumble?”
Kate almost appreciated his bluntness, given that she knew his assessment of her was shared by many of the men who surrounded her in Washington. Instead of responding, she calmly walked over to a stool on which was a plate with a stack of pizza slices. She moved the plate to the floor.
She knew not to stand above him because that would make it seem like she was lecturing him. And she certainly was not going to kneel. So she scooted the stool directly before him and sat, uncomfortably close and at his eye level.
You are not my first Napoleon. Boys don’t change, they only grow chest hair.
He leaned back further into his La-Z-Boy.
“I need to know what’s about to happen. If you help me understand, I can try to get you out of here.”
“You assume I want to get out of here. Well, there is one place I’d like to see.”
“Talk to me and we’ll see what I can do. I won’t leave you down here, Ryan. I know you don’t know me, but I want to earn your trust. I am told you remember everything about your abduction. Adults don’t remember, but children do, am I understanding this correctly?”
“All I know is what I know. You’re not full of crap? You could get me out of here, even for the weekend?”
“I will do my very best—”
“I want to go to Comic-Con. It’s in two weeks.”
“That might be difficult. Given what you’re capable of doing, a lot of people could get hurt.”
“Private tour, then. Before it starts. I get to see all the movie trailers and clips and everything before anyone else. Guarantee it, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
She pulled out her phone. Even this deep beneath the earth, they’d made sure there was Wi-Fi and cell service, just to keep him happy. He was blocked from posting anything on social media or contacting anyone, but he insisted on having the access to texts in order to send demands for McDonald’s and to play Minecraft.
She fired off a series of texts and waited.
“Done,” she said, after her phone pinged twice.
“Really? Can you show me?”
She gave him the phone. “That is Alex Bright, the junior senator from California. Deep support from Hollywood. You can see I asked for a private tour of Comic-Con for a donor’s son, with full access. And, as you can read, she said no problem. Do we have a deal?”
He read it twice and nodded. “Gotta catch the last one. Can’t miss it.”
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest grosses of the Avengers movies, but I think Comic-Con’s going to be around for a while.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that.”
“Why do you say that?”
He looked down at the controller in his hands, obviously wanting to return to his game.
“Why, Ryan?”
He looked up at her, the smirking grin now gone. In those deep brown eyes was real fear. “You don’t have any idea what’s coming.”
“That’s why I’m here. To find out. I’ve seen interviews conducted with people who were abducted a long time ago. But you’re the only one who still remembers. I have a million questions for you about how you were taken and what happened to you, but I have to focus on how to understand, maybe even stop, what’s happening.”
He grunted. “You can’t.”
“I know you told the agents that you communicated with… whatever those things are. I understand this communication was done before, by sharing memories. But I’ve watched your interviews, you said you didn’t share memories, you actually understood them.”