The Swallows

by Lisa Lutz

  My phone began to buzz. I looked down and saw two new texts.

  Gemma: We did it!

  Gemma: Oh my God. Come to my office. Now.

  Keith was saying something about moving to higher ground. I told him I had to go. I made my way to Headquarters and down the stairs to the basement.

  * * *

  —

  As I approached Gemma’s office, I could hear feverish chatter from the other side of the door. I knocked. Kate swung open the door and ushered me over to the desk, where the girls were huddled around a laptop.

  “Oh my God. What the fuck?” said Mel.

  There were a few complete sentences spoken, but, for the most part, communication was in the form of repeated expletives.

  “So, is this the Darkroom?” I said.

  Gemma tilted the computer screen, showing me a page with pictures of breasts and comments I couldn’t read from that distance.

  “This is your evidence,” I said. “You can do something now.”

  Kate slowly shook her head and said, “No. We’re not there yet.”

  “Oh my God!” Mel said.

  Then Gemma shut the laptop.

  “We have to complete our research first,” said Gemma.

  “What research?” I said.

  “If this were a bank robbery—we’re putting on our ski masks,” Kate said.

  “No, that’s not right,” Mel said. “We’re still looking at the blueprints for the dog-grooming business that shares a wall with the bank.”

  While Mel and Kate quibbled over the type of business next door and the description of the current phase in their plan, I turned to Gemma for insight.

  “Right now we can only see one part of the Darkroom,” she said. “Everything is codified, so there’s no way to move forward until we break the codes and find where they keep the information on Dulcinea. But we’re so close.”

  Horseshoes and hand grenades, I thought.

  Gemma Russo

  No one had smoked anything, but we’d reached another stratosphere of emotional chaos when we finally got inside the Darkroom. It was the feeling of being on a roller coaster, including the rush of adrenaline and the part where your stomach flips and you think you might barf.

  There were countless galleries and message boards and photos that looked like gynecological textbooks—if you ignored the commentary beneath the brightly lit close-ups. Mel had only been reviewing the evidence for a few hours. She had five years of unedited content to sift through.

  There were photos one couldn’t always interpret by the thumbnail pictures from my laptop screen. Mel clicked on one; when enlarged, it was clearly a close-up of a vagina. Beneath the photo was commentary by TonyStarx: The protruding labia is the inverted nipple of vaginas. Avoid at all costs.

  Mel clicked on another thumbnail, another photo of female genitalia.

  A perfect specimen, tight and wet, says mADSKILLz.

  “What the fuck!” Mel said.

  Angry Mel was my favorite Mel. We could have explored the photos and message boards and gained a more comprehensive understanding of our enemy, but we were after something more specific than this anonymous bullshit.

  “Where’s the Dulcinea Award?” I asked.

  “We don’t know,” Mel said. “There are so many message boards in different sections, and it’s hard to navigate. There are also codes, and we have to figure out the code names and if there are other codes.”

  Kate was already scribbling letters and numbers down on a pad of paper.

  “I’ll break the codes,” Kate said. “It’s kind of my thing.”

  “So how’d you hack the Darkroom, Mel? You never told me,” I said.

  “Unless you know how to navigate a LAMP stack, you wouldn’t understand,” she said. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “But mostly it was luck. Yeah, luck,” Mel said.

  Ms. Witt came by. We told her about our progress. That we were close. She wanted to see the proof. I gave Mel a specific glance. I don’t know how she managed to interpret it correctly, but she chose one of the tamer posts. There was a page devoted entirely to pictures of the “perfect” breasts, with a poll that was happening in real time.

  Ms. Witt said something about hand grenades and left. Come to think of it, that was a good analogy for where we were at. We’d just pulled the pin on the first grenade.

  Mel was a lunatic. She was clicking around the Darkroom, shouting expletives and reading aloud from the screen. I looked over her shoulder as she enlarged an image of a woman’s already ample buttocks and began to read the comments aloud.

  dead_klown: what make you of this trend for the ample ass?

  DoomsDay: I’m old school. Small and tight.

  mADSKILLz: You could serve a three-course meal on that thing.

  LennyBro: That just nasty.

  I was trying to get Mel’s attention, but it didn’t work. So I flicked her on the head.

  “Ouch.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “But this is important. We need to gather as much evidence as possible before someone sees that you’re fishing around. Copy everything; save it to this jump drive.”

  “Okay, boss,” Mel said.

  Kate had been quiet for a while. When we looked over, she was stretched out on the couch, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

  “Kate? What are you doing?” Mel said.

  “I’m trying to meditate,” Kate said.

  “Now?” said Mel. “I thought you were code-breaking.”

  Kate sat up suddenly and opened her eyes. She swallowed like she was nauseous. She gripped the edge of the couch and a tear fell down her cheek.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “I’m so angry,” Kate said. “All the time. Sometimes when I want to feel better, I imagine burning this place to the ground. I picture myself holding a machine gun and mowing down all of the editors and a few of their enablers. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through the day is the thought of outliving some of those dickheads. I picture myself in twenty years, standing over their graves and spitting on them. Or something else. I don’t know. But now, because there’s nothing I can do with this, I start crying and then I feel weak and pathetic and I get angry all over again.”

  We’ve all felt that impotent anger. I tried to find words that might help. Mel reached into her pocket.

  “I have half a donut left over from breakfast. You want it?”

  Ms. Witt

  Since Martha Primm was the Ethics Czar of Stonebridge, I decided it was time I got her alone to see what she was really about. I found her in the teachers’ lounge and invited her out for drinks that night.

  “Just you and me?” she said.

  “Just you and me.”

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  I arrived early at Hemingway’s to fortify myself before Primm got there. I ordered a beer. As Hugh pulled my pint, he asked about Claude. He said she hadn’t been around for a while and he was worried. I told him about her mother and he nodded.

  I was halfway through a beer when Primm showed up. She took the seat next to mine and ordered a vodka cranberry.

  “Well, this is nice,” Primm said.

  “Yes,” I said, with effort.

  We didn’t say anything else until Hugh served her drink. Primm held up her glass for a toast.

  “To new beginnings,” Primm said.

  We clinked glasses and drank. I finished my beer and ordered another.

  “How are you liking Stonebridge?” Primm said.

  “I…like it,” I said.

  I couldn’t muster an enthusiastic response, but I doubt she noticed.

  “I always wondered why you left Warren Prep. It has an impeccable reputation.”

  “Reputation isn’
t everything,” I said.

  “That is so true,” Primm said.

  “I wanted to ask you about something,” I said.

  “Happy to help in any way,” Primm said, attempting an open smile.

  “Hypothetically speaking, how would Stonebridge handle a claim of sexual assault or rape?”

  “Oh. That’s not how I expected to spend happy hour,” Primm said.

  “Maybe I should have warned you about what I wanted to discuss. I’m just trying to understand the protocol at Stonebridge. Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” Primm said. “Hypothetically, we would take the matter very seriously, I assure you.”

  “How does very seriously translate into action?” I said.

  “Um. Let’s see. We would interview both parties.”

  I noticed Primm had a nervous habit of lightly touching her halo of hair, as if she were making sure it was still there.

  “What if the two parties told a different story?” I said.

  “I would have to use my best judgment,” said Primm.

  “You know what? This hypothetical thing isn’t working. Can we talk about the incident that brought you to Stonebridge?”

  “How would you know about that?” Primm said.

  “I asked Dean Stinson.”

  “There’s a gag order,” Primm said.

  “He didn’t give me names.”

  “What is it that you want, Alex?”

  “I want to know how things are done around here. That’s all. I’m not trying to re-litigate anything.”

  “There were no lawyers involved, I’m happy to report,” Primm said.

  “How about the police?” I said.

  “I feel like I’m talking to the police right now,” said Primm. “You must have learned a thing or two from your father’s detective novels.”

  “Not really. So, no rape kit, no police report?”

  Primm cleared her throat. “It wasn’t necessary. In that particular case, we interviewed both parties and determined whether disciplinary measures were necessary.”

  “Who is we?”

  “I misspoke. I interviewed both parties and came to the conclusion that there was no misconduct.”

  “What did your report say?”

  Primm finished her drink. I clutched my beer close, so she wouldn’t have anything to spill on me.

  “Alex, I assure you there was no sexual impropriety. The girl and the boy were dating. When he broke up with her, that’s when she made the allegation,” Primm said with aggressive impatience. “We spoke for a long time and came to the conclusion that it was a simple misunderstanding.”

  “Was the board of directors involved in your decision?” I said.

  “They were informed after the fact. Look, Alex. The girl was confused. It was a misunderstanding. That’s all.”

  “What was the crux of the misunderstanding?” I said.

  “She didn’t say no.”

  Gemma Russo

  Linny had managed to gain access to the school’s mimeograph machine and generated fifty poster-sized copies of the blowchart. She’d been posting them throughout the campus in subtle and not-so-subtle locations. Meanwhile, the cheap WANTED posters for the shower terrorist kept getting a manual update. The $500 reward was now $1,500. Rachel Rose had started playing gumshoe. She even wore a trench coat over her uniform as she roamed the campus, interviewing suspects. If you didn’t submit to an interview, she put you at the top of her list. Turns out, I was already up there.

  Rachel caught up with me after lunch, as I was leaving Dahl. She asked if I would mind answering a few questions, as she flipped open her notebook and clicked her pen to attention. I told her I was taking a walk and she was free to come along. Rachel inquired about my whereabouts during specific attacks. She had trouble taking notes while keeping up with my brisk pace.

  “Can we please sit down?” she said, pointing to the bleachers by Fielding Field.

  We sat down in the first row. I answered Rachel’s questions with polite indifference. When she was done and mostly satisfied that I could not have been the culprit, I had a few questions of my own.

  “This whole charade can’t be about the reward money,” I said.

  “No,” said Rachel. “I don’t even think there is an official fund. Every time something goes wrong, someone adds a couple hundred to the sign.”

  “Then why are you helping them?”

  “I’m being neighborly. That’s all.”

  “Seems like you’re neighborly enough.”

  Rachel readjusted the scarf around her neck.

  “How pedestrian,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Your narrow-minded view of feminism,” Rachel said.

  “Well, damn,” I said. “Wasn’t expecting you to trot out the F word.”

  “My view of feminism is inclusive, not judgmental and alienating.”

  “Am I really getting a lecture on feminism from the class slut?”

  I’d never seen Rachel angry before. She fidgeted with her scarf, like it was strangling her, and kept clearing her throat.

  “You think a feminist can’t use her sexuality to gain advantage. I think every woman has the right to do whatever she has to do to get by,” Rachel said.

  “So, it’s okay to exploit another woman to get ahead?”

  “What are you talking about?” Rachel said.

  “I know you took those pictures of Kate,” I said.

  Rachel rolled her eyes and adjusted her scarf.

  “I was trying to empower her.”

  “By blanketing the school with naked photos of her?”

  “I was the photographer,” Rachel said. “Not the distributor.”

  “And who was that?” I said.

  “No idea. That’s all for now. Thank you for your cooperation.”

  I hadn’t realized how much anger I had tamped down until Rachel walked away. My nails had left red crescents on my palms. I felt my eyes begin to water. I knew exactly what Kate had been feeling. I fought hard to bring myself back to my cold, calculating normal.

  Linny appeared like a wraith next to me. She must have crawled under the bleachers and wiggled through the metal scaffolding.

  “Wow. That was intense,” Linny said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Should you have called her a slut?”

  “What do you want, Linny?”

  “Mel and Kate are looking for you. We have a problem.”

  * * *

  —

  I arrived at my office to find Mel pacing in an oddly diagonal formation, like she was following the pattern of an invisible pentagram on the floor. She marched back and forth, covering as much space as possible, chomping on licorice the entire time, the bulk of the work being done by her neck as she yanked pieces from the vine.

  “Mel?” I said.

  “Someone removed all the photos from the Darkroom. It’s just words now.”

  “When did that happen?” I said.

  “I don’t know. Overnight,” said Mel.

  “You got copies, right?” I said.

  “I got most of them,” said Mel. “But why did they take them down?”

  “You think they know?”

  Mel gazed down at the end of her licorice rope.

  “Maybe,” Mel said. “I don’t know. It doesn’t change anything.”

  Kate, in her own world, stood in front of the chalkboard, scribbling things like 3Hawk27, 2Loon89, and 1Sparrow526. Below that she had the alphabet written out, with number equivalents beside them. A=1; B=2; C=3, et cetera.

  “What’s up with Beautiful Mind over there?” I said to Mel.

  “She’s code-breaking,” Mel said.

  “Care to explain?” I said.

  “The guys go
by random dumb-fuck nicknames, like Hef13, TonyStarx, and Doomsday,” Kate said. “But I think they’re using a cryptogram for the girls. Something with birds and numbers and letters. If I can figure out what girl they’re talking about, then we should be able to figure out the boys’ code names.”

  Linny picked up a sheaf of printouts on the coffee table and began reading aloud: “LennyBro says about 2Owl420: Her tongue feels like a salamander when Frenching, but her suction is incredible. Advice: Limit foreplay. Hef80 replies: Why are you making out with 2Owl420? LennyBro says: Brah, someone needs to break her in.”

  I took the papers from Linny. Mel covered her eyes and began rocking back and forth.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” Mel said.

  “Relax, Mel. I promise we’ll get there. We won’t just knock the editors down a few pegs; we’ll take them to the rooftop of a skyscraper and shove them off one by one.”

  Norman Crowley

  After I gave Mel entry into the Darkroom, I started to get paranoid. Like so paranoid I almost went back to my shrink. Jonah noticed how jumpy I was one day and just slipped a joint in my pocket.

  It was the photos that freaked me out. Not just because they were creepy, but because they might have been illegal. I had never posted a picture myself. But I’d shown them how. I coded the page and gave them the links to do whatever they wanted. I rarely looked at the pictures, I swear. And I suspect that they were shots of women, adult women, that they found online. But I really didn’t know, because most of the pictures cut the woman’s face out of frame, which also creeped me out.

  Everyone who posts in the Darkroom has a unique screen name and password. I set them up; I know who most of them are. Last year a senior named Crosby Whitaker, I kid you not, asked me to create a “wild-card account,” as he called it, under the username Bagman2. He said it was an homage to the original Bagman, Jonah’s brother, Jason. I figured Whitaker retired that screen name when he graduated, but clearly he’d bequeathed the cyber identity to one of the editors. Bagman2 posted the picture of Kate.