The Tetradome Run

by Spencer Baum

  Bart, more interested in the lips that were speaking than the words that were spoken, was slow to compute. But the name Sunny Paderewski was enough to wake him from his stupor.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?” he said.

  “Maybe I should start again,” said Pamela.

  “Yes, please,” said Bart.

  “Gabe Chancellor, a reporter from Albuquerque, has written an article about Jenna Duvall based on new information he claims to have uncovered. On the phone this morning he told me he’s come into possession of a partial memoir that Jenna wrote in prison, as well as several important photographs.”

  “A memoir?” said Bart.

  “He has scanned copies of pages written in Jenna’s handwriting,” said Pamela.

  Bart felt his neck and shoulders going tense.

  “This is just some reporter from Albuquerque?” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Why would he have Jenna’s prison memoir?”

  “He claims that Jenna secretly gave him a letter when she was in town for Kyle’s funeral.”

  Bart reached behind his head and began rubbing at his neck with his hand.

  “He has a quote from staff at the New Mexico Penitentiary that Jenna worked on a memoir once a week in the prison library,” said Pamela. “And he has these photographs.”

  “Why do we care?” said Chanelle. “The world’s already made up its mind about the story Jenna was trying to tell.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Pamela, “which is why I didn’t comment for him, but the more he told me about this story, and it’s a pretty involved story-”

  “What’s in the story?” said Blake.

  The sound of Blake’s voice was the proverbial record scratch that made everyone sit up and take notice. Blake never spoke in this meeting.

  “The reporter claims there is a section of the memoir that Jenna’s brother wrote before he died,” said Pamela. “That section talks about this mystery woman from Jenna’s court testimony.”

  “Sunny Paderewski,” said Bart.

  “That’s right,” said Pamela.

  “In the notes I took from the conversation…I wrote down here…let me see.” Pamela shifted through the papers in front of her, pulling one out to read it aloud. “A romance between Kyle and Sunny. A recounting of a robbery the two of them engaged in at a chemical supply warehouse. A notable act of vandalism at Mary Nolan College.”

  “What the heck?” said Donnie.

  “Are we talking about that time someone set off stink bombs at a college watch party?” said Herman.

  “Yes, Mr. Chancellor told me on the phone that his piece will draw connections between Jenna’s brother, Mary Nolan College, and Nathan Cavanaugh,” said Pamela.

  Noisy reactions around the table: Nathan Cavanaugh? What does he have to do with this?

  “But you didn’t comment on any of this,” said Chanelle.

  “Of course not,” said Pamela.

  “Did he give you a copy of this article he’s going to publish?” said Blake. Again, the sound of that guy’s voice in this meeting…such a rarity. Why did he care about this?

  “No, these reporters never give out the articles,” said Pamela. “They typically just tell you about the most explosive charges in the piece over the phone, hoping to goad you into saying something. Oh, and in this case, he sent me some photo files, which I’ll share with you in a minute.”

  “What do you mean photo files?” said Bart.

  Herman spoke before Pamela could answer.

  “To clarify, this guy’s going to press on Monday, after the Finale’s already been run, with a story that claims there is some connection between our two most popular contestants.”

  “That’s right,” said Pamela. “But Monday is just the print date, and I guarantee you with a story like this they’ll get something online before our show. The reason he called me today is because they’re probably going to start pimping the story on TV, maybe as soon as tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what ‘pimping the story’ means,” said Herman.

  “They’ll put excerpts online, they’ll share larger excerpts with TV producers,” said Pamela. “Gabe will do interviews on cable news where he’ll talk about the piece. The idea will be to get traction on social media right when everyone’s excited about the race, but to save the whole story for newsstands Monday and sell a bunch of magazines.”

  “Honestly, this sounds like a bunch of malarkey,” said Herman.

  “No one has ever claimed or even attempted to claim there’s a connection between Jenna and Nathan before,” said Chanelle. “This sounds an awful lot like noise to me.”

  “It did to me too,” said Pamela. “But we have this State of the Company meeting so everyone’s on the same page, right? Let me talk to you guys about the photo files he sent me and then we can move on to our next topic.”

  Pamela connected her tablet to the projector that hung from the ceiling. Chanelle dimmed the lights. An image of the screen on Pamela’s tablet filled the far wall of the conference room. They watched as Pamela opened her email, brought up a message from Gabe Chancellor, and began opening the file attachments.

  “Mr. Chancellor says all these photos are going to appear in the magazine piece,” she said.

  She opened jpeg images, one after the other, minimizing each until she reached the one she wanted, an image of two young people, early twenty-somethings, a guy and a girl, sitting in front of a wall of graffiti.

  “Mr. Chancellor claims he found this photo in Kyle Duvall’s apartment, and believes it shows Kyle sitting next to Sunny Paderewski,” she said. “Take a good look at the young woman, because she’s the important part of the story he’s trying to tell.”

  Bart did take a good look at the young woman, and felt his stomach grind as he did.

  In the photo, the woman’s hair was long, curly, and dark. Her face was a little bit round, her cheeks a little bit full. Would anyone in the room other than Bart recognize her as Foster Smith?

  Be cool, Bart. This changes nothing. By Sunday night Jenna will be dead and no one’s going to care.

  Running her finger across the screen of her tablet, Pamela changed the projection on the wall, minimizing one photo and bringing up another. This new photo, a grainy black and white, showed four young people sitting on a bench in front of a tree.

  “Mr. Chancellor wouldn’t tell me the whole of the story he is going to publish,” said Pamela, “other than to say his research led him to believe this young woman attended Mary Nolan College in Central Texas at the same time as Nathan Cavanaugh, who you can see in this photo.”

  Bart heard a few murmurs at the table, sensed people shifting in their chairs.

  “We’ll just take in this photo so we’re all ready and then move on,” said Pamela. “As you can see, this photo, which Mr. Chancellor claims to have found in an old yearbook from Mary Nolan College, shows a young Nathan Cavanaugh sitting with three other students. Nathan is sitting second from the left. The caption on the photo confirms that it’s him.”

  The caption on the photo read, Blue Brigade, Mary Nolan Chapter: Sparrow Hollister, Nathan Cavanaugh, Bianca Marston, Gordon Bogel.

  “The young woman to Nathan’s left is the one that Gabe Chancellor is writing about,” Pamela continued. “Gabe insists that this girl to Nathan’s left is Sunny Paderewski, and if you look at the two photos, they do indeed look similar.”

  “Lots of people look similar,” said Chanelle. “And the caption…what’s her name in the caption? I’m having trouble reading it.”

  “Sparrow Hollister,” said Pamela.

  “I thought her name was supposed to be Sunny,” said Herman.

  “Mr. Chancellor believes that the girl used a pseudonym.”

  “I think we can dismiss this and move on,” said Herman. “Thank you for bringing it to our attention Pamela, but this is just more crackpot conspiracy theory.”

  Staring at the photo, Bart considered
speaking up. He considered telling everyone that there might be something to this, that…

  His thoughts fell apart as his eyes drifted left to right across the photo. The girl on the end, a young Nathan Cavanaugh, another girl, and…a boy who looked familiar. A boy with a broad forehead and narrow eyes.

  In the next few seconds of time, seconds that passed in relative silence in the conference room, seconds that allowed for thoughts, for shifting eyes, for realizations, three events, three tiny happenings, each with their own significance, came to pass.

  The first was that Bart’s memory decided the narrow-eyed boy in the photo did indeed look like someone he’d seen before, someone who was seated a few chairs away from him at the table. Blake Miller, the head of security, had a broad forehead and narrow eyes. Blake Miller, musclehead Blake Miller, was about thirty pounds heavier than the skinny kid in the photo. He was bald rather than balding. He was older, maybe seven or eight years older…

  The second happening was a shift in Bart’s gaze, a shift away from the photo and toward Blake. Blake caught him looking. The two of them made eye contact. Blake quickly turned away.

  Nervously turned away.

  Guiltily turned away.

  The third happening was a backwash of ideas, thoughts, and memories that burbled into Bart’s consciousness. Amidst all the panic and fallout from Jenna’s escape attempt, Bart had mostly forgotten that, at one time, not that long ago, he was freaking out over missing clickers and the possibility that someone was trying to kill his prize contestant.

  Someone who had access to a clicker. Someone who knew about and could activate the GMS switch. Only senior staff were allowed to activate a GMS switch.

  Pamela turned off the projector. Chanelle turned on the lights. The meeting moved on to the next agenda item, even as Bart’s mind lingered behind on the last one.

  Bart’s mind lingered behind on the implications.

  Someone had hired Foster Smith, promoted Foster Smith, allowed an antidomer radical deep into the heart of secure operations of Devlin Enterprises.

  Blake Miller made hiring decisions in maintenance and security.

  “Our next agenda item is review of the live broadcast checklist,” said Chanelle. “Bart, it was production management who asked for this agenda item.”

  “What’s that?” Bart said.

  “People from your department asked our group…”

  Bart was looking at Blake. Blake was pointedly looking away.

  “I have to go,” Bart said.

  “You have to go?” said Chanelle. “But this checklist? It’s the last agenda item.”

  Bart was already standing. “Figure it out,” he said. “I need to go to my office.”

  CHAPTER 49

  Bart rushed through the hallways of Devlin Tower in a panic of scattered, multi-determinate origin.

  Was he panicked at the realization that Blake Miller, the long-time head of security at the complex, might be in league with an antidomer radical who tried to spring Jenna loose? Yes.

  Was he panicked that the very idea of Blake as some kind of mole was ridiculous, but he believed it anyway? Yes.

  Was he panicked that somehow, all of this mess would find a head before, during, or after the Finale, and that this head would turn back on him, open its jaws, and swallow him?

  Yes, he was panicked about that most of all. So many material pieces of information he had chosen to keep secret because they threatened his Finale, his oh-so-precious-break-all-records Finale.

  He was drenched in sweat when he got to his office. With trembling hands, he tore through the stack of papers on his desk.

  Invoices, memos, meeting minutes—he tossed it all on the floor, muttering, “Where is it where is it where is it!”

  In the chaotic aftermath of Jenna’s escape attempt, Bart had given Carlos a long list of requests, everything he could think of that might explain how it came to be that a prisoner nearly got out of the cellblocks. Computer logs, background checks, security protocols…it was a confused, let’s-throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall approach to the problem that resulted in a messy stack of papers on Bart’s desk.

  One report from inside that stack seemed pertinent now. The door reports, the tracking of every employee’s movement throughout the complex as recorded by their security badges—a bundle of spreadsheet printouts, annotations from Carlos on every page—Bart grabbed the lot of them.

  He flipped through the stack, each page a different door in the complex. Cellblock Entrance, North Training Center Entrance, Training Center Lobby, Obstacle Course 1, Course 2…he flipped faster…Course 4, Course 5, Course 6…

  Obstacle Course 7.

  He felt a growing sense of unease as he looked at the paper. Half the guards in the complex were in range to activate Jenna’s GMS switch that day. Was Blake…?

  Yes, Badge ID 775341: Blake Miller. Yes, he was in the vicinity, but where exactly? Bart didn’t recognize the location code. Thankfully, Carlos had written a note in the margin.

  Bird’s Nest.

  And there it was.

  The Bird’s Nest, a completely unused bit of wasted space, a room above the training center where Blake had no reason to be during training, unless he wanted a clear view of Jenna so he’d know when was the best time to try and kill her.

  A clear, anonymous view. Were it not for the door reports, no one would have ever known Blake was there.

  A click. The door opened. Carlos? It was always Carlos. He was the only one allowed to just open the…

  He looked up to see Blake Miller entering the office.

  “I think we need to talk,” Blake said.

  He closed the door behind him. Blake and Bart were alone in the room.

  “Oh, okay,” Bart tried to say, but his throat had gone dry and the words didn’t fully come out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What do you-”

  “I want to talk about the meeting we just left,” Blake said, stepping closer to Bart’s desk.

  Aggressively closer.

  “What are you…stop right there. I didn’t invite you into my office.”

  Blake didn’t stop. Slow steps, one at a time, he moved closer to Bart’s desk. “You gave me a weird look at one point in that meeting,” he said. “And then you rushed out.”

  “I’ve asked you to stop moving,” said Bart.

  Blake stopped. “Alright,” he said. He was no more than two steps away.

  “People make appointments before they come into this office,” Bart said. “And it just so happens that I’m busy at the moment.”

  “I understand,” said Blake.

  “We can talk another time,” said Bart. “After the Finale, let’s-”

  A quick draw, like a gunman in a Western. A taser. Blake lifted it from his hip and fired in one smooth motion. A pop, barely louder than when his daughter snapped her bubble gum, and Bart felt his whole body go rigid. What the hell are you doing? he said, or rather, thought he said. Maybe the words didn’t come out. A giant muscle spasm of pain as Bart fell backward, unable to control his body.

  He nearly landed in his chair but the imperfect angle of his approach combined with the chair’s wheels made for a clumsy, bumpy skid all the way to the floor, Bart and chair falling at once.

  As he fell due to stubborn, frozen muscles, Bart couldn’t help but think of the Gross Motor Switch, a feature he’d used on more than one contestant over the years.

  He came down butt-first, his middle-aged body absorbing the shock in a landing that was just as painful as the tase. Again he tried to speak. God dammit Blake what the hell is this about?

  His mouth worked a little this time, but his ears told him that he sounded like a stroke patient. His words mushed together in nonsense. “Gerbberrbleackapplelleszoot?”

  Blake descended on his fallen body, pressed the taser gun into his chest and popped it again.

  Jesus Fuck no you’ve gotta stop this! were the words Bart tried to say this time.

  “I don’t like th
e way you were looking at me in that meeting,” Blake said. “And I don’t like how nosey you’ve been in my department.”

  Bart was frozen in place, unable even to blink his eyes. He couldn’t see all that Blake was doing…reaching for something? Pulling something out of his pocket? Please don’t tase me again.

  Please don’t kill me.

  “You and I could have avoided this dustup if you weren’t so nosy,” said Blake. He had something in his hand now. Bart wished he could move his eyes to see it. “But you know what? In the end it won’t matter.”

  Blake’s hand moved into Bart’s field of vision and Bart saw what he was holding. A syringe. A needle attached to a thick plastic tube—the ones they used in the lab.

  “You were going to die anyway, Bart,” he said. “I’m just sending you on your way a couple days early. Hell, depending on how it plays out, this might be a less painful way for you to go.”

  You’re going to kill me? Why? Can’t we talk about it?

  A prick, a nasty one, right at the base of Bart’s neck. The needle? Are you sticking me in the neck with that needle?

  The answer came quickly. A gush of exhaustion. An overwhelming desire to relax.

  To close his eyes. To go to sleep, dimly aware that he would never wake up.

  CHAPTER 50

  They moved Jenna to Cellblock D.

  They put a cage of chainlink fencing inside the block, confining her to just the front room of the space.

  They put a portable commode in one corner of the cage. A Yack Shack desk in another. A couch. A bed. There was a refrigerator against the near wall. They stocked it with enough food to keep her going for days. A bed with a stack of extra sheets. A dresser with a week’s worth of clothes in the drawers. It was clear to Jenna that they intended to lock her inside and leave her to rot until race day. No more training. No more interaction with the other prisoners. Just a girl in her cage, where she and her thoughts had to wait quietly until it was time for the show.

  No problem, she thought. It’s not like I haven’t done solitary confinement before.

  She paced. For days she paced. A room that’s big enough for pacing is a room that’s big enough for living was something her friend Dayla had said to her once at the Pen. The motion of her feet quieted her mind, and woke her body, which had begun to atrophy from her week in a hospital bed.