Mayhem and Madness

by J. A. Dauber

  Me, once more letting it drop: “Sure, Mom. Exactly. It’s all good.”

  And that would be that, because Mom was, as I’ve said before, kind of perma-distracted and preoccupied. Sorry, Mom. You know it’s true.

  But I suppose you could say that some sort of seed had been planted.

  So we got away with it, I think. My mom did say she was going to watch me like a hawk, but she—how can I put this?—didn’t. Which was a relief, but not too much of a surprise.

  I mean, yeah, she checked in every day, or two, but it was kind of…preprogrammed, you know? Like she had set an alert on her phone to ask me about Caroline. Or my grades. And once I had satisfied the conditions of her formula or whatever—Things are okay, Mom, much better or Studying hard, I really think I’m going to turn it around—she would go dark until the next time Siri reminded her. Part of it might have been that she was spending more time with this boyfriend. I don’t know. I changed the subject whenever she brought him up.

  And in terms of changing the subject, aside from a few brief conversations about getting our cover story straight in case my mom asked, Caroline changed the subject pretty quickly whenever that evening came up. It was never to be spoken of again, which was fine with me.

  Well, no. That’s not true. It came up once more. But we’re not there yet.

  Caroline’s clear desire never to repeat the kissing meant I could annoy her with a thousand different drafts of the three sentences I was going to write on the note to give to Rebecca along with the necklace. Could? Did. And did and did and did.

  I knew I’d get Rebecca’s attention. Kids were doing all sorts of stuff to ask girls out for winter formal, like arranging flash mobs to sing their favorite songs and cramming their lockers full of stuffed animals, but I was pretty sure no one else was getting a necklace worth more than a car. A really nice car.

  Did I think that she was going to go to winter formal with someone she’d hardly spoken to—our weird moments in the halls notwithstanding—because of jewelry?

  I mean, she said yes, right? So that’s the answer, isn’t it?

  But I think…in fact, I’m sure now…that it’s not. It wasn’t the jewelry. She’s not that kind of person.

  I have another theory.

  I think everyone’s attracted to mystery in their lives, particularly when those lives seem dull and humdrum. I mean, I was—am—a case in point. I think maybe if I’d been one of those guys whose parents owned a mansion up in the hills, she wouldn’t have given me the time of day, even with jewelry ten times as expensive. Instead, I was this sort of weird, mysterious, against-my-will public figure, and if I could make myself even more mysterious…

  And she was—is—a journalist, after all.

  But also, I don’t know if she felt she had other options. Everyone else assumed she was going with Logan. I mean, how could she not? And so no one had asked, not even poor Jimmy Anderson with his neck brace. I think she’d probably been thinking about what her winter formal was going to look like: sitting on the side with a guy who couldn’t dance, trying not to be pitied. Instead, she could be striding out with a guy who’d put diamonds on her arm. More than a little bit different. Definitely out of the ordinary. And at least worth exploring.

  I finally settled on a message the next day. I ran it by Caroline, who thought my theory was stupid, but also had a pretty low opinion of Rebecca since the podcast incident, so she figured it might work anyway. Well, what she texted me was: If your theory, which is stupid, is correct, then this may be the least stupid way to go about it. Which I decided to take as a thumbs-up.

  I wrote it on the small card the elegant store manager at Tiffany’s had provided for me. Slipped it into the soft blue pouch. Jammed it in my pocket for the next day. I was ready.

  * * *

  I had a few hours left before Mom came home, so I spent them looking through my dad’s files on the lab computer.

  I thought I’d seen everything, but I guess I hadn’t, because a little icon popped up on the bottom right after I opened this blank file I’d never bothered with before. I clicked on it and a photo album opened. Pictures of my dad and my mom, and then of the three of us, when we were much younger. Mom and Dad looked happy, and young, and beautiful, and even though we had family albums upstairs, I’d never seen any of these pictures before. I thought about printing them out, but if Mom found them it would raise more questions, and anyway there was no printer in the May-cave.

  I turned a picture of the three of us, where I’m in a stroller, into a screensaver, and went back upstairs. Mom would be coming home soon, and I had to start making dinner.

  * * *

  Friday. My heart was pounding. I was going to do it.

  Approach Rebecca.

  I was sweating. I thought I might throw up. Or pass out. Or both.

  I guess they weren’t broken up, or, if they were, they were telling everyone and themselves that they were still good friends, because they were together. Logan was limping down the hall about five feet behind her, though. I’d noticed Rebecca had picked up the habit of moving quickly, to get a little ahead of him. I think some people thought she was embarrassed by him, but I knew—or, at least, I thought I knew—it was more complicated than that. It was like she was trying to…escape, I guess. To fly free.

  That was what I was hoping for, anyway. That all she needed was an excuse.

  I walked over to Rebecca, almost passing her by, then leaned in like I’d spotted something on her shirt. She looked startled, and then—I thought—I saw the hint of a smile. Which gave me courage.

  Just like I’d rehearsed it a hundred times, I said, “I think you dropped this,” pressed the bag into her hand, and walked away. Smooth as I could make it. I think my voice cracked a bit, but overall it went well. Clearly it went well enough.

  I can guess how the next part went. Rebecca, heading around the corner, opening her hand, seeing that distinctive blue color that says Tiffany’s, peeking in, seeing something bright and glinting. Maybe going into the girls’ room, sitting in the stall, opening it up. Other girls might wonder if it was real, but Rebecca knows her way around jewelry. And she recognizes the Tiffany stationery along with the bag. So she thinks maybe it’s real. And then she reads the note:

  There’s more where this came from. You’ll find out what—and how—at winter formal. On my arm.

  Your mystery man

  And then my cell number.

  I wish I could say it made me feel bad, or disappointed, when I got the text forty-five minutes later. The first contact I’d ever had from Rebecca. But when I read it—Intrigued. Meet me after school, and then a time and classroom number—I jumped and shouted out loud in the middle of the hallway, which led to a bunch of smirky looks, and (in one case) the finger.

  I will spare you the embarrassment of the various fantasies occupying my brain for the rest of the day. Suffice it to say I’m not sure I thought about Mr. Jones or Mayhem once. Not even my dad.

  School ended, and I think I set a new land-speed record running for the classroom.

  Except when I got there, it wasn’t a classroom. It was the school recording studio, where Rebecca recorded her podcast.

  It was actually a former double-size janitor’s closet that the administration had redone, which meant that it was tight. There was enough room for two chairs and some sound equipment, and not much else. When Rebecca came in and closed the door behind her, maneuvering herself into the other chair, our knees practically touched.

  My entire body had gone dry and nervous and flushed. I had this odd thought that it would be great to get into the Mayhem suit, which was cool and metallic and polished, and never showed any flaw or break.

  Well, back then it was polished. Now it’s a different story.

  But I had to handle this one by myself. No suit. Just me.

  I started to say something, but Rebec
ca put her finger to her lips, and put on her headphones. Then she motioned for me to do the same thing, hooked up her phone to the soundboard, and pressed the Record button.

  “We have a new, surprise guest for this week’s podcast,” she said into the microphone. “A man of mystery. Bailey, tell us about yourself.”

  I took a long time to answer. Finally I managed to say that there wasn’t much to tell.

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s going to satisfy our listeners,” Rebecca said. “I’ve heard, for example, that you belong to a very exclusive club.”

  I remember nodding in absolute confusion, and the frustrated look on Rebecca’s face as she pointed to the microphone. The school budget for the arts being what it was, there was only one mike, hanging from the ceiling, so I leaned in and said that I guessed that was true.

  “A man of few words,” Rebecca said into the microphone. “I suppose that’s a part of the mystery.”

  I leaned forward again, getting the hang of it. The microphone, I mean, but also the conversation. “Yes,” I said, and leaned back again.

  “Well,” Rebecca said, and she leaned in, not into the microphone, but past it, so that she was close to my face and I could smell her perfume, stronger than ever. I felt dizzy; I mean, it was hot and the room was slightly but definitely spinning. “Maybe I’ll need to do some more reporting. To figure you out.”

  I think I might have managed an uh-huh at that point.

  “At the dance,” she whispered into my ear, soft and warm, and then leaned back, and said, “That concludes our show for this week,” and pressed Delete on the board. Then she looked at me and said, “Now, go. I have an actual taping in ten minutes. I’ll text you later.”

  I staggered out of the booth and went home, my head whirling.

  To find Caroline waiting at my doorstep.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Is your mom around?”

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “Good,” she said. “Then let’s go down to the May-cave. There’s something I need to do there.”

  * * *

  She told me to turn it on.

  The suit, she meant, which was lying there on the lab bench. It looked wrinkled and sloppy, a lot like my dirty gym clothes. The only difference was it wasn’t on the floor.

  “Wait,” I said. “Hold up. What’s going on?”

  And she looked at me. “Bailey,” she said. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you,” I said. “You’re down here, aren’t you? Obviously I trust you.”

  “Then trust me,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about this. For days. While you’ve been out robbing Tiffany’s and stopping terrorists.”

  That’s what she said, those exact words. And they sounded…well, glamorous. Like I was some kind of superhero or something.

  Or whatever you call a superhero who robs jewelry stores.

  So I nodded and started to suit up, and she stopped me. “Keep it on the bench,” she said.

  “Caroline—” I started.

  “It’s simple, don’t you see?” she interrupted. “If Mr. Jones is taking control of the suit, there’s only one way he can do that: by transmitting signals to it. And those signals have to come from a computer somewhere. His computer. If we find the computer, we find him.”

  That made sense to me. It made a lot of sense, in fact.

  But she was still talking. This part I didn’t follow as much. Like I said earlier, I don’t know anything about computers. And remember what I said before about how in comics there ends up being a genius somewhere in the school? Well, this wasn’t that. Like I said, Caroline was no superhacker, no computer genius.

  But—if I understood what she was saying correctly—this wouldn’t be the same as hacking into the computers. It was much easier to find where the messages were coming from than to find out what the messages said.

  Before I could ask her how exactly she was planning to get the location without Mr. Jones finding out, she plugged her phone into one of the ports in the leg of the Mayhem suit.

  I remember shouting at her not to do it. I remember saying something about Mr. Jones, how he was paranoid, how I was sure he was watching. I did. I swear I warned her. She just kept swiping and tapping and scrolling and saying that she would be in and out before he noticed….

  I knew I had to tell her she was wrong. She didn’t know him. I was sure—absolutely positive—that Mr. Jones had taken precautions. But this was a lead, maybe, the only lead, since that trap-door-spider thing seemed to be a dead end.

  Still, I was going to say something. Really I was. Except that by the time I managed to start getting the words out she was already disconnecting the phone.

  “Here we go,” she said, and after some more typing and tapping, she looked up at me. “Have you ever heard of Clapham Junction?”

  NOW. FRIDAY. 10:23 P.M.

  Still a long time until dawn.

  Eight hours and twenty-one minutes, according to the suit.

  That’s when the built-in solar mesh can start recharging, maybe even get the autorepair going. I won’t be up for a full-scale firefight anytime soon, but at least I should be able to run away more effectively. The army has to get clearance to attack, after all. At least I think they do.

  In the meantime, I need a place I can go to ground. Recover. That national park a few miles outside of the city looks good.

  Maybe I could even get out of the suit. Then I’d be just another camper. Only without a tent or any other kind of gear. Including food or water—for all the cool features the suit has, a place to store food and water isn’t one of them.

  And it’ll be hot when the sun rises. That park is desert territory—mesa and scrub brush. Beautiful empty landscapes that go on forever without changing much, but the temperature’s not like that. It’ll go from freezing to dehydrating in an hour or two. I don’t know much about this stuff, but everyone who grows up around here knows enough not to get caught unprepared. Like I am now.

  I’ll worry about that when the time comes. Hopefully I’ll be out of there by rocket boot long before I get really thirsty.

  Heading over there now.

  In the meantime…

  Okay.

  This next part is going to be hard.

  Okay.

  THIS WEEK

  Caroline’s phone came up with two Clapham Junctions: a British transportation interchange near London or, much more likely, a small town about a hundred miles away from where we lived, just a smidge inside the outer limits of the Zone.

  “Huh. That’s odd,” she said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “There’s nothing special about it,” she said.

  I asked her what she meant, and she pointed out something that reminded me just how brilliant she was.

  Almost every place has something about it that stands out on the Internet. A hot dog stand, the local lacrosse team, something. But here there wasn’t anything. It was like someone had taken special care to make sure no one would ever want to drive by the place to check it out.

  I had a feeling I knew who that somebody was.

  It wasn’t so far away. A few hours by car, maybe a little longer with skirting around the borders of the Zone. I suggested Caroline go home, we both get some sleep, and then we’d figure out the next step. Which would have been—I swear—for me to go there on my own and check it out. It’s easy to say now, but that’s what I would have done. Drones, overflights, military presence: none of that mattered. I had a next step, and I was going to take it. Yeah, Caroline would be upset that I did it without her, of course, but for all her intelligence, I didn’t think she understood how dangerous this was. She had never seen Mr. Jones up close. I mean, neither had I, with his mask and everything, but you know what I mean. So I was going to do it. That was my plan.

  And I thi
nk Caroline could sense it. And she was not down with it.

  For her, this was the adventure of a lifetime…

  She insisted we go right away. Even when I reminded her about her rehearsal—winter formal was the next day, and she was supposed to spend the night with the mp3s—she came back with, “Isn’t finding your dad more important than a gig?”

  What was I going to say to that?

  But I tried. I said, “Look, we can’t go now. It’s six o’clock. Clapham Junction’s at least two hours away. We’d be out all night.”

  And she said—with a crooked smile—that one way to really convince my mom that we were together was to slip out and spend the night together.

  “After all,” she said. “She’s seen how hot we are for each other.”

  That was the other time she brought up the kiss.

  And it was a joke. It really was. But it was discombobulating. And maybe—I don’t know—maybe that was part of the reason I stopped objecting. I was too thrown. Or maybe I didn’t want anything to get in the way of moving forward on my rescue mission. I don’t know. Really. I don’t.

  I did convince her, though, to wait until the next day. She stayed that evening until Mom got home and we told her that Caroline was going to show up at 7:30 a.m. to whisk me away for corsage selection and final tuxedo fittings. And that I had better be ready because it might take a while, maybe even all day.

  This was a better excuse than it sounds. Given everything that had happened over the past few months, the administration had decided to give us a break. Being the administration, of course, they had done it in the most backward way possible. First they had floated the idea of canceling winter formal altogether because of “security concerns.” That obviously caused a riot. Then, and only then, did they consult the school psychologist and the FBI, who said the same thing: That’s a terrible idea.

  And so they went the other way and made it a big, dorky thing, with the theme “We Are Strong and United,” which had absolutely no effect except that it covered over some of the posters from the original theme, “Mars by Moonlight.”