We Are Satellites

by Sarah Pinsker

  “My name is Lana Robinson. Has Sophie mentioned me before?”

  David tried to look through her head to the television. “No.”

  “I work for the FreerMind Association, in the national office. Sophie’s organization is part of ours.”

  Not squirrel bones: raccoon. To be continued, except when another episode started a minute later, it wasn’t the second part, but a new one with what looked like an exciting setup: the backyard held a decrepit family cemetery.

  He clicked off the television before he got drawn in, and turned what little attention he had to the woman in front of him. “Got it. FreerMind. Lana Robinson. How can I help you?”

  “How are you doing? We were very worried about you.”

  An odd thing for a stranger to say, and maybe she realized it, too, because she added, “Sophie’s family is family to us, too.”

  “I’m okay, all things considered.”

  “We heard you had your Pilot removed. Is that true?”

  He turned his head to give her a better look. “Turned off, not removed.”

  “Good, good. Listen, David, I don’t want to waste your time while you’re here resting and recovering, but we had a question we wanted to ask you.”

  He didn’t point out she’d asked at least three questions already. Those had been small talk. Whatever came next was the reason she was visiting, not some fake talk about family.

  “David, FreerMind has been impressed with you for a long time. BNL must have known they had a good thing in you. Your charisma, and the way you convey seriousness and intelligence, like you put careful consideration into your choice, and everyone would be happy if they made your choice, too. Your ads made it very difficult for us to convince people not to get Pilots.”

  That still wasn’t a question, so David waited politely.

  “We wondered if—when you’re recovered—we might convince you to run for office.”

  That wasn’t anything he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure how to respond. He settled on “What office?”

  “There’s a contestable House seat in the state. Harry Andress hasn’t been polling well recently.”

  “House like the US House of Representatives?” He’d expected her to say city council or something in state government. This was a whole different order of magnitude.

  “Yes. Like I said, Andress has been polling poorly, and we think we can oust him.”

  “I don’t know the laws, but is this something a nonprofit is supposed to do?”

  “Not exactly. We wouldn’t be involved, beyond arranging a meeting between you and some party officials. They’d take it from there, help you form a team, all that.”

  “And you’re offering this to me because I got hit by a train?”

  “We’re offering because we heard you’d had your Pilot out—”

  “Off.”

  “—Your Pilot turned off. We’re arranging this because it would be a coup for anti-Pilot activism if someone of your stature entered the race. People like you and trust you. If you said you’d gotten your Pilot out—”

  “Off.”

  “—Off because you’d come to realize the problems inherent, you could turn the tide.”

  “And what if my opponent pointed out I was dumb enough to get hit by a train?”

  “A freak accident. Maybe it was the train company’s fault, or whoever maintains the tracks. Have you considered suing? Or maybe you were trying to save a kitten. People would eat that up.”

  “They would,” he agreed. He was fading, whether from concentration or this weirdly intense woman or the pain starting to creep along his leg. “Look, I’m getting tired. Can I say I’ll think on it?”

  She pressed a card into his hand. “Call me when you want to get the ball rolling. I think you’d have fun with this. All the good parts of your old job, like talking with people about things that matter to them and to you, without the parts where you’re convincing them to install a dubious technology in their heads.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled and waved at her, hoping it was a wave that conveyed good-bye.

  He dropped the card beside the telephone and closed his eyes. The funny thing was, he didn’t entirely hate the idea. He liked talking with people about things that mattered to them; his favorite part of the BNL job had been figuring out how and why a given person would benefit from the Pilot, in order to sell it to them. Public office would mean he wouldn’t have to prove to another interviewer that he was as good as a Piloted worker; he’d just have to convince voters he could get as much done as a Piloted politician.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  SOPHIE

  As she ran upstairs, Sophie texted Gabe. Coffee. Now. Big hugs!

  Big hugs, the highest priority in their silly system that had never mattered more, because it meant she could meet Gabe away from the meeting space, away from the office and phone.

  Before she’d gotten to the counter, Gabe stood beside her. “Is your brother okay?”

  “Yes! I mean, they amputated his foot, which is awful, but he’s alive and he didn’t mess up his head or anything, which they said is pretty amazing.” She realized Gabe must have thought she’d contacted him because of David. “But that’s not why I texted you.”

  She filled her mug and paid. She started talking the second they were out the door. “I’ve been thinking for a while now that maybe our phone is bugged.”

  “Yeah,” said Gabe. “Or the office. That’s why we do this walk-and-talk thing.”

  “Right. I still don’t know who might have done that, but I’ve also been thinking: somebody is feeding information to BNL.” There had been one terrible moment where she’d thought it was Julie, but Julie was spying on Sophie, not on the group. She wasn’t passing along what she learned, just using it to keep tabs.

  “And?”

  No point holding out for the sake of drama. “It’s Dominic.”

  “That kid? Isn’t he like fifteen?”

  “He says seventeen, but he could be older and look like a kid, like me. He’s always hanging around, and I know lots of people do that, but he’s like freakishly always around, offering me rides places, all that. I was thinking, we know from my brother that you can get a Pilot turned off but the light left on, so why couldn’t you be a spy for BNL who has a Pilot without a light? The light is just branding, to make sure everyone without one knows they’re getting left out.”

  “Oh shit. That actually makes sense. But that could still be anyone, right? Why do you think it’s him?”

  “Like I said, he’s always showing up and offering me rides.”

  “Are you sure that doesn’t mean he likes you?”

  Sophie frowned. “Yes, I’m sure. Stay serious.”

  “I am serious. You’re very likable.”

  She filed that for later. “But here’s why I think it’s him: the other night—God, was it only last night?—last night he drove me to the hospital to see my brother. And this morning, there were all these articles connecting David the ex–BNL spokesmodel and David the fool on the train tracks.”

  “The article I showed you said his name, or I wouldn’t have known it was him.”

  “Yeah, but nobody else knew his name without seeing his face. In the ads he was ‘David,’ not ‘David Geller-Bradley.’ But that’s not the important part. I don’t think BNL ever knew David had gotten his light turned off. He didn’t do it at one of their facilities, and his light was still on when they fired him.”

  “Would they have a way of checking if a Pilot stopped sending information?”

  “Huh. I never thought of that, and that’s terrifying, since it would mean they could be monitoring people’s Pilots, and if they can be that invasive, they can do all kinds of things we’ve never talked about, like remotely turn up their input without their knowing, or track their location . . .”
<
br />   She shook her head, trying to shake off the tangent and the thought that the company could be doing a hundred things more insidious than the ones they’d already assumed. “Anyway, this morning there were all these articles saying it was him on the tracks and getting statements from BNL about why they let him go and speculation about why he might have turned it off, and the dangers of getting it turned off and all this crap, but assuming they aren’t Big Brothering my big brother, the easier answer is I remember I told Dominic last night that David had it turned off, and this morning not only did the papers have that information, but BNL had that information and a spin on it and everything.”

  “That’s horrible and it makes sense. Hmm. So what are we going to do?”

  Sophie loved Gabe as always for the “we.” “I’m trying to think of something.”

  “I mean, we can either kick him out or we can use him, if we can think of a way to use him. Like, maybe, to funnel bad information back to them somehow? Trip them up?”

  “Yeah.” Her heart leapt; some part of her had a taste for espionage.

  They stopped for a pedestrian signal with a blinking hand. No time to cross. Sophie stared at it. “Hey, Gabe?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I have another thought. There are four permutations, right? No Pilot, no light, like you and me; yes Pilot, yes light, like most people. And theoretically there’s no reason why you can’t have a Pilot without a light, like Dominic.”

  “Theoretically, yeah. And your brother had his Pilot turned off, so that’s no Pilot, yes light.”

  “Yes, except that one has two branches. People like my brother, who had a Pilot and had it turned off, but are still signaling that they have one, but also—”

  Gabe smacked his forehead. “—Also people who are signaling that they have one, but never had one to begin with. No Pilot, yes light. Like people who—”

  “—Sell a product they want everyone to use but know better than to use themselves. BNL executives.”

  “BNL doctors. Maybe not some who got good Pilots and then went to med school, but some of them, at least.”

  “BNL researchers.”

  “BNL-owned politicians.”

  “All of them. Gabe, we have to find a way to prove it.”

  The traffic light had changed and changed and changed back again. Sophie looked around the intersection at the people waiting on corners and in cars, the people walking. Most had the telltale blue lights, but now she knew anyone could be anything and if anyone could be anything, no Pilot yes light, yes Pilot no light, yes yes, no no, then the light didn’t matter anymore, and maybe the discrimination could come to an end.

  They started walking again, throwing ideas at each other and shooting them down, until Sophie’s phone rang, surprising them both. She’d turned on the ringer for once, in deference to her brother’s situation. The caller ID said it was Julie. She hesitated, then answered.

  “Hey, Soph. David asked if you’d come back to the hospital.”

  “Sure! Is everything okay? Were the reporters there?”

  “Yeah, you were right, but it turns out that even though he’s dopey, he’s not too dopey to realize he shouldn’t talk to vultures.”

  “There were vultures here? Did someone die?” That was David in the background. He followed it with a giggle.

  “He says he needs to talk with you. You should get here before his jokes get worse. Charge a ride on my account if you need to.”

  “Thanks,” Sophie said with genuine gratitude. Her wallet was feeling the strain.

  She turned to Gabe. She hadn’t been looking where they were walking, but they were almost back to the meeting space.

  “I’ll hold down the fort,” he said. “Go.”

  “No, I—why don’t you come with me? We’re not done planning yet, and that way we don’t have to find each other later to finish.”

  He nodded.

  * * *

  • • •

  The visitor desk insisted on calling David’s room when they arrived, which turned out to be because a photographer had managed to get in an hour earlier, which the receptionist said in a passive tone, like he hadn’t been the one to let the photographer upstairs.

  Both their parents were in the room. Julie had moved a chair over near the door, where she’d set herself up as a formidable sentry. Val had taken the armchair in the corner. David sat awake in bed, still with the not-quite-David relaxation on his face.

  “You remember Gabe?” Sophie asked.

  “Of course,” said Julie. “Though you haven’t been to the house in ages. How are you?”

  “We live in interesting times.”

  David laughed and gestured toward the second bed. “Make yourselves comfortable. We’re out of chairs.”

  Gabe sat stiffly on the bed’s edge, looking like he was afraid to wrinkle the sheets. Sophie flopped onto the pillow and crossed her legs. “You summoned me, Your Highness?”

  David laughed at her fake formality, then reconfigured his face in an attempt at serious. “Yeah, I got an interesting visitor this morning.”

  “They said downstairs—a photographer?”

  “Not that. That was just some ass who tried to take my picture while I napped. Anyway, that was nothing, but something else happened, and I wanted to tell you about it if we’re out of the secret game.” He paused. “Maybe I should talk to you alone?”

  Sophie glanced at the others in the room, then shrugged. “Out of the secret game.”

  “Wait—why don’t Julie and I go grab lunch?” Val stood. “Just because you’re all Team No More Secrets doesn’t mean you don’t deserve privacy.”

  “If you two will promise to guard the door . . .” Julie looked reluctant to leave, but Val led her from the room.

  David waited until they were gone to start talking. “Okay. You know a woman named Lana Robinson, right?”

  “Yeah.” Sophie glanced at Gabe. “She works in our national office, in state priorities.”

  “She said she was your coworker.”

  “Yeah, close enough. Wait—are you saying she was here?” She could think of reasons for a BNL exec to show up, or a reporter, or a photographer, but not FreerMind.

  “That’s what I needed to tell you about. It was the weirdest thing. She came here to ask me to be part of some anti-Pilot platform.”

  “Wait, what? Are you sure you weren’t drugged or something? That makes no sense.”

  Gabe leaned back on his hands. “Well, it makes a little sense, Soph. High profile, anti-Pilot . . .”

  “But he’s not anti-Pilot. He’s just anti-Pilot for himself. He was like their salesman of the year!”

  “I never saw numbers,” David said modestly. “And I was more of a recruiter than a salesman—”

  Sophie shot him her most withering look. “You make my point either way.”

  “—But I’m starting to think you’re right, at least about some of it. Even if Pilots can be useful, they have problems nobody is talking about.”

  Sophie dropped back onto the bed. The hypocrisy boggled her mind. First, David had gone to work for BNL as the poster boy for the product even though he didn’t love his own Pilot. Then he got it out and kept working for them, selling unsuspecting people on Pilots. Then her own organization came to him and asked him to be a poster boy for them, too. Why? She answered that aloud: “I mean, I get why. What better spokesperson for the anti-Pilot movement than the former face of the whole Pilot program? I suppose she came here the second her keyword alerts showed her an article saying you’d gotten yours deactivated. Maybe she’s got a whole list of people she’s drooling to get into the fold. What does she want you to do?”

  “Run for Congress.”

  Gabe cough-choked. “Congress? Like US Congress? You?”

  “Is it that ridiculous?” David looked offe
nded. “I’m a decorated soldier, and I’m good at public speaking. I’ve seen both sides of this Pilot thing. Not too many people can say that.”

  Sophie stood and paced the narrow space between beds, her hands on her head. “It’s not that you’re ridiculous. You’d probably make a good politician, all things considered. The kind that cares.”

  “Thank you?”

  “It’s that FreerMind shouldn’t be asking you—I mean, Lana Robinson works for ‘state priorities’ in any case, and Congress should fall under federal priorities, if they’re even allowed to do that. But also, it’s not right that they would come to you in the hospital and assume you’re on their side and—”

  “That’s what I said to her. Or what I’m going to say to her. I’m a little hazy on what happened in real life and what happened in my mind.”

  Sophie stopped pacing. “So you’re not going to do it?”

  “No way. You’re right. She assumed I was anti-Pilot; she never even asked why I got it turned off.” He fiddled with the IV in the back of his left hand, then noticed what he was doing and stopped. “And she never asked why I was on the train track. I thought it would have been important for her to know, and she never bothered to ask. She told me how she’d spin it, but she wasn’t interested in the truth, just how she’d change public perception. I’m not interested in playing that game anymore.”

  “Wow,” Gabe said. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”

  Sophie almost laughed. She was relieved David had seen through the offer. Part of her felt bad about it, because if she was really the good soldier in the Pilot war that she’d always said she was, she should’ve been excited about the prospect of David running for office, not mad. Lana was right that he would be an asset to their side, and they did have a side, and they were supposed to be on it together, national and local and political and grassroots, all working toward the same goal.

  “Anyway,” David said, smiling, “I’ve been thinking about it, and why not you? You’re young and energetic and passionate about helping people. You can stand on the virtuous ground of never having had a Pilot. You have a huge network of people in this area. Your brother is a sad-sack one-footed former spokesperson for BNL, whose accident you’ve vowed to avenge.”