“Yeah. That’s me.”
The guard extended a hand. “You and me were in the same year, Riverport High. How’ve you been?”
Amy sighed.
“Oh, hey…”
The guard laughed uncomfortably and waved a downward paw. “Ah, you don’t remember me. Doesn’t matter. I was carrying more weight then.”
Amy surveyed them for a heartbeat, then turned on her heel and walked back to camp. “Don’t lose any sleep over it, Jack Joyce. We’re just a flyover town.” Hand painted in white on the back of her hoodie: RESPECT EXISTENCE OR EXPECT RESISTANCE. She tossed the remaining flyers away, a fluttering pink cloud.
The guard sighed. “I hate to see the library go, but folks’ll be glad to get these tents off the lawn. Who knows why the board let them camp there in the first place. You know your brother doesn’t work here anymore, right?”
An alarm went off in Jack’s head: when people he didn’t know mentioned Will it almost always meant trouble. “Sure,” Jack lied. “Hey, can you point me to the Quantum Research Lab? I wanted to take a look and then I’ll get to my hotel.”
Since when had Will worked anywhere, let alone in a respectable lab at a respectable university?
“It’s almost four A.M.,” the guard said.
“Flight just got in.” Jack smiled. “Still on Thailand time.”
The guard laughed, pointed east. “It’s always lit up. Oh and hey, stop by the Tavern on a Friday. Some of us still hang there. Dave’s managing, so we get a discount.”
Jack gave a relaxed salute. “Will do. See you.” He had no idea who Dave was.
A game plan Tetrised into his head: see Paul, clean up after Will, rebook an exit flight. If he did this right he could be back in Asia before Thursday. Maybe he’d move on from Thailand, up stakes and get to Cappadocia; subsidize the whole trip with a few articles on food, politics, and the underground cities. Or he could do a follow-up on the scopolamine trade in South America, or a character piece on the attendees of Lebowski Fest in Louisville, or pretty much anything that let him grab a few more years of not thinking about whether his life was a panicked exercise in fleeing from himself.
“Jack!”
And there he was, right on time, saving Jack from further thoughts: Paul Serene. Less polished than his Facebook photo, way tidier than the frightened kid who thought he was going to die on Bannerman’s Overlook six years ago. Clean, healthy, and in a starched shirt that probably cost more than everything Jack was wearing.
“What are you doing lurking on the lawn?”
Paul hopped over a park bench at a leap, bounced onto Founders’ Way. “You know that guy?”
“The guard? Didn’t even get his name.”
“He didn’t ask why you were here?”
Strange question. “Just told him I wanted to check out the fancy lab, then head home. Everything cool?”
Paul smiled, extended his right hand and pretended he hadn’t heard the question. “How are you, man? You know all that sun’ll have your face falling off by the time you’re forty right? We’re working on treatments for that. The reports are saying we could have Keith Richards looking like Gosling by 2025. Look at you!”
Jack opened his arms. “Bring it in, buddy.”
Paul looked at him sideways, gave Jack his best are-you-serious face.
“Ah, right. Massachusetts. Where people don’t hug. How’d you survive eighteen months in Paris?”
“Denial, wine, and nightmares. C’mon I’ll show you the lab. Gimme the latest. When are you coming home?”
Jack zipped his jacket higher, stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “Is it far? It’s colder than I remember.”
“Just around the corner. Don’t change the subject.”
“I’m fine. Thinking of maybe moving to New Zealand. I hear it’s really… livable.”
“The last time you messaged me you were talking Kabul.”
“The expat culture there’s been covered. Time was all over it years back.”
“You’re still doing that?”
“Being awesome?”
“Reportage.”
Ugh. What is that feeling? Oh yes, guilt. He was meant to be a working reporter, not someone making his savings last on a beach in Asia.
“You realize that you’ve become a manifestation of Zed’s fictional idea of herself, right?”
“Beats working at Walmart.”
“One day she ran away from home as a kid. The next day her dad was a millionaire astronaut who left her a bundle in the will. After that she was in witness protection. After that she was-”
“On the run from the mob, had amnesia, had a terminal illness, was a retired dental hygienist trying to visit all fifty states… I know. I was there. The stories were a game. She was real.” He looked Paul in the eye. “She saved your life.” A helicopter thudded overhead, spotlight briefly playing across the quad, light turning to spears as it fell through the sparse canopy of elms. “You said you work for Monarch?”
“Yep.”
“They’re funding you?”
“Monarch Innovations, their fringe R-and-D division. It’s been a total game changer for outliers like the Riverport lab.”
“Ten years ago everybody lost their minds because someone opened a Wings Over Riverport. Now this.”
“People do like chicken.”
Jack had to admit: the new campus did a good job of killing nostalgia. It was beautiful, pristine, calm, and confident. It said: We’ve got it under control. Things are going to be okay.
He thought about cops in Chiang Mai, rolling on Monarch tires, and Riverport cops working hand-in-glove with Monarch Security. Monarch Agricultural drones were using seed bombs to replant swathes of clear-cut Amazon, while Monarch Pharmaceuticals subsidized the espresso machines of hardworking unlicensed cab drivers.
“Hey, funny thing: that guard said Will used to work here.”
Paul smiled uncomfortably. “Yeah, about that. When did you last hear from your brother?”
Here it comes. “A week ago. He said I needed to come back and talk sense into you, actually.”
Paul stopped in his tracks. “That’s why you’re here? Not because I asked you to?”
“I’m here because he sent me that e-mail and then you asked me to. What’s going on? The message you left was pretty…” What was the word? “Grandiose.”
“Where’s Will now?”
“He wanted me to go straight to the house, but I figured I’d get more sense out of you.”
Paul chewed his lip for one thoughtful second, and then said: “It’s better that I show you. Fuck.” Paul’s eyes were locked on something over Jack’s shoulder: the security guard had come back, was talking into his radio, looking in their direction and nodding. “C’mon, walk fast.”
Walking away from a badge at 4:00 A.M. wasn’t something Jack questioned. He and Paul had started with egging houses on Halloween, graduated to breaking into junkyards to shoot zombie footage for high school film class, moved on to a short-lived flirtation with growing weed in his bedroom, and ended in that final scene with one of the state’s more serious killers. If Paul said turn away and fly casual, Jack didn’t overthink it.
“You mind telling me what’s going on?” They reached the end of Founders’ Way, turned right, and then: “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Paul Serene’s twenty-foot-high face smiled down. The videoboard was attached to the façade of the old university lab, preserved within the vision-challenging lattice of the new Quantum Physics Building dome. The view pulled back from Paul’s mug, revealing him holding a roiling ball of light in one palm, before a benevolent sweeping gesture invited the viewer into what was presumably a brighter future. This was signified by the light ball enveloping the screen and MONARCH INNOVATIONS sparkling into view.