The Tetradome Run

by Spencer Baum

  As was so often the case in Gabe’s life, reality ignored his desires and went its own way.

  The first media he checked the next morning was Twitter, where he saw the official Devlin Enterprises account put out a statement that said, “We only deal in fact as decided upon by America’s legal system, and encourage our viewers to treat all stories about our contestants with skepticism.”

  He turned on the TV expecting to find the Sunday talking heads shows debating his story. They weren’t. One network was talking about anticipated ratings for the Finale. Another was talking about a health care bill on the floor of the Senate. Another was interviewing a reality TV star.

  Okay, but surely the Internet was talking about his story, right?

  Only the second-tier news sites, and even then, only after the fold, and with a tone of skepticism and disdain. The few stories that referenced him weren’t about the content of his piece so much as about Gabe himself. Who is this guy who showed up on Tammy Flanigan? Another conspiracy theorist? Who’s to say he didn’t write that memoir he claimed to have found? Who’s to say he didn’t digitally create the photographs he showed us?

  His first phone call of the morning was to Myka.

  “This is such bullshit!” he said.

  “It does seem like the reaction to your appearance has been…muted,” Myka said.

  “Other than a couple nobodies making fun of me on Twitter, there’s been no reaction at all!”

  “It’s a complicated story,” Myka said. “It will take people time to wrap their heads around it.”

  “I thought I explained it clearly on the show,” said Gabe.

  “You did explain it clearly, on weekend television the night before the biggest Finale in the history of The Tetradome Run. There are a thousand stories vying for people’s attention right now, and you’re telling them something they don’t want to hear.”

  “What don’t they want to hear?”

  “That Jenna might be innocent.”

  A pause in the conversation while Gabe digested this nugget of truth.

  “I’m sorry this isn’t going how you expected,” Myka said.

  “It was foolish of me to think this story was going to change anything, wasn’t it?”

  “No, but it might be foolish to give up on the idea less than 24 hours after your first media appearance.”

  Give up on the idea. The words sounded oddly appealing to him.

  Liberating.

  Give up on this ridiculous vision he’d been chasing for 20 years. Accept that he had been clinging to newspaper dreams in a digital world. Accept that, in the digital diaspora of 21st century media, where every story has to compete with ten million others for space in a hundred million carefully cultivated echo chambers, maybe the picture in his head of what it means to be a journalist was pure fantasy.

  “What the hell am I doing with my life?” he said.

  She laughed. “You’re doing your best,” she said. “We all are.”

  They ended the call, leaving Gabe alone in a hotel room in Manhattan, laptop open on his bed, remote pointed at the television.

  He kept flipping the stations, looking for any sign that his appearance on Tammy Flanigan had influenced the world.

  He wasn’t finding any.

  …and tonight’s course will include a new game with robots…flip…oddsmakers give Nathan Cavanaugh the best chance to…flip…analysts expect tonight’s Finale to break all previous records for…

  His phone, which had been buzzing all morning with mostly meaningless chatter, buzzed again, this time with a message from a reporter he used to work with at the Journal. Saw you on TV last night!

  This was all that was coming in. Distant family and old high school classmates who were connected to him on social media, former colleagues, current colleagues…he was getting plenty of well-wishing from people happy for his perceived success, but none of the invites from major editors and publications he’d thought might be rolling in by now.

  The next text came from Myka. Hang in there, my friend. I’m proud of you.

  He sent her a happy face in response.

  On the television he’d landed on a highlight reel of previous Finales. Jerome Kittel staggering over the finish line; George Tito racing Patrick Nealson towards Victory Road; the timer running out on Kato Dawson, the Freedom Bridge opening underneath his feet, dropping him to his death.

  Another text came in, this one from an unknown number.

  Check your email, Mr. Chancellor. Look for a new message from Tara Lex.

  Who the hell was Tara Lex?

  He opened his email, and sure enough, right at the top of the Inbox: New email from Tara Lex. Subject: Open Immediately.

  He opened it.

  Dear Mr. Chancellor,

  I watched your television appearance last night with interest. I have connections to both Jenna Duvall and Sunny Paderewski. I have information that will help verify your story.

  One paragraph in and his mind was already shouting messages of caution and skepticism.

  Probably some Internet troll looking to mess with you. Don’t get your hopes up.

  Don’t get your hopes up indeed, Gabe, but keep reading. There’s more.

  I’ll be at the watch party tonight at Polaris. I’ve taken the liberty of obtaining a ticket for you. You’ll find it attached. Come to the party tonight. I’ll find you and give you information that will blow this story wide open.

  There was an attachment at the bottom of the message. Gabe looked at it, hesitating.

  Could be malware, he thought. Could be some prankster looking to make a fool of me, some hacker looking to blackmail me, some bored, lonely loser looking to toy with me.

  Those thoughts still ringing about, he opened the attachment anyway. Really, at this point, what did he have to lose?

  In the attachment he found two digital tickets, both in his name. One was an admission to the most exclusive Tetradome watch party in the world. The other was a plane ticket to Vegas.

  He hit the Reply button.

  I’ve received your email. Who are you?

  The response came quickly.

  I have many names, Mr. Chancellor. You mentioned two of them last night on Tammy Flanigan’s show.

  I have a lot to tell you. See you tonight.

  CHAPTER 54

  On the top floor of Devlin Tower, Bart Devlin’s assistant, Carlos, now in full freakout about his missing boss, spoke frantically to a group surrounding his desk.

  “He isn’t answering his phone, he isn’t in his office, he isn’t at home, nobody’s seen him since Friday morning!”

  Across the street, in the Control Room at the base of the Tetradome, an assistant director named Jodi Carradine ran the pregame show in Bart’s absence.

  Alone in the holding room, Jenna replayed the memory of Sunny’s late-night appearance on her Yack Shack screen.

  Another chance to escape.

  Third section of the course.

  A forest.

  A hidden service road.

  In the memory she saw Sunny’s newer, skinnier face. Her short hair. Her purple bangs.

  Purple bangs for a girl who loves purple flowers. Dame’s Rocket flowers.

  Jenna was certain that when the guards walked her from the cellblocks to the holding room she saw pots of Dame’s Rocket lining the walls of the Underdeck.

  Pot after pot of Sunny’s favorite flower lining the walls.

  It meant something.

  Sunny was Foster, Foster worked for Devlin, Devlin covered the walls of their arena with Dame’s Rocket.

  Jenna knew Sunny too well to think it was an accident. Sunny didn’t do accidents.

  Sunny did signatures. Those flowers were a signature for something.

  But for what? What was Sunny going to do?

  Two time zones away, Gabe Chancellor arrived at LaGuardia airport. He found a kiosk. He keyed in the confirmation number on the airline ticket his mysterious emailer had given him. The kiosk sp
it out a boarding pass with his name on it. It was for the next flight to Las Vegas.

  Back in Nevada, on the south end of the Vegas Strip, a young woman carried a case of plastic water bottles through an employee entrance at the back of the Polaris resort.

  The woman took her case of water to the employee lounge, where she put it on the bottom shelf of an empty coat closet.

  None of the other employees asked her what she was doing, but one of them did ask about her hair.

  “Oh this?” she said, flipping at her long, jet-black bangs with her fingertips. “I got tired of purple, so I changed it.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Bad Decision #2. I Let Him Read To Me.

  Excerpted from A Victim of Circumstance: The Memoir of Jenna Duvall

  One more thing I should mention about that summer after Rudy died.

  Seth came over a lot that summer.

  He wasn’t the only one, of course. I got flowers and cards and letters—my pen pal sent me some really good letters that summer. People from Brigade and band and even some old high school friends came by. They visited and said I’m sorry for your loss I can’t even imagine let me know if there’s anything I can do I’m thinking about you you’re in my prayers…

  Seth was different. The day after Rudy’s funeral, Seth came up to my room and asked if he could read to me.

  His manner was apologetic. He told me a story about his mother reading to him when he was sick. I could do the same for you…but only if you want me to.

  It sounded so innocent. But I knew it wasn’t.

  Even though Seth was presenting himself as a friend who was concerned, I knew his motives weren’t as sweet as that. I knew from the moment he arrived that Seth was making a play for me. He was playing the long game, putting himself in a position to strike when the time was right. Someday I’d be ready to date again, and when I was, Seth wanted to be the one who had been so nice to me I’d feel guilty dating anyone else.

  I knew all this, and I let him read to me anyway.

  The first day he read from a book of poems he brought with him. For a good hour, I lay there with my eyes closed while Seth read the words of Tennyson, Wordsworth, and Keats. I remember he read the “Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” poem to me that day. I remember a quiet voice in the back of my mind telling me to be careful about Seth and what he was doing.

  I’m a victim of circumstance. I am an innocent woman who has been wrongly convicted. But I’m also a person who made three terrible decisions. The first was to write and deliver a letter to the girl with bumblebee toenails that I met in freshman orientation.

  The second was allowing Seth Daron to read to me.

  He started coming over in the evenings. First he came with poems, then, over the course of a few weeks, he read a whole novel to me, a good novel (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). Then, just as I was beginning to look forward to his visits, he brought a muckraking political propaganda novel, as if a girl whose boyfriend just died has any desire or brainspace to think about politics.

  Poor Seth. The guy couldn’t help but be an evangelist for his beliefs. Seth was the guy—I’m sure you’ve met that guy—the one who’s convinced he’s providing an invaluable service to the world every time he shares an opinion. I let it go on for too long that summer. I let him read to me long after I wanted it to stop. I mean…at one point he was reading to me from Spartacus Jones and The Serpent’s Mouth. What kind of smarmy jerk reads a novel like that to a depressed person?

  What kind of weakling allows him to do it?

  I remember one night he was reading from Spartacus Jones. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. He read through to the end of the chapter, then he put his hand on my forehead and whispered something about injustice in the world and how he and Sunny and I were going to change it. It was creepy and gross.

  But still I did nothing.

  I need to stop. The prison chaplain says I am too quick to blame myself. And I am. I know I am. I know that what happened with Seth isn’t even remotely my fault. I believe that.

  Kind of.

  It just messes you up, these things that happen to people.

  When your life takes a wrong turn, a course-changing turn, an accidentally-drive-to-the-sandwich-shop-where-the-assassin-is-waiting turn, how do you deal with the regret? How do you separate out the causes that are your fault from the causes that aren’t?

  Seth went back to Dallas at the end of the summer to visit his parents. For three weeks he was gone, and it was in those three weeks that I got out of bed, got my clarinet out of the closet, and rejoined the world. The day before Seth was slated to return was the day I stood at my front door and refused to let Sunny inside. I was prepared to have a similar confrontation with Seth when he got back. I was ready to tell him that I appreciated him reading to me, that I admired him for his convictions, that I thought he was a good guy, but that I was ready to be done with him. I had rehearsed the whole conversation in my mind, and in that rehearsal, I said, Seth, I have decided that you and Sunny and the Blue Brigade are distracting me from my purpose.

  It turned out I never had to say those words. It turned out that, before I could tell Seth I was done with him, he decided he was done with me.

  The night I sent Sunny away, she contacted Seth. The two of them decided to leave me alone. Or something. It’s not like I know exactly how it all went down between them, but I do know that, when he came back to town, Seth put me on radio silence.

  Seth and Sunny had already decided to commit murder by this point—of that I’m certain—and whatever visions Seth had of me joining them, of me becoming a part of their conspiracy and then running away with them when it was done, living as fugitives with them, with Seth as my boyfriend…

  It makes me sick to think about it. To think that a weak, cowardly man like Seth thought he could replace Rudy…

  I’m glad he’s dead.

  I shouldn’t say that. The whole point of the Blue Brigade (for me) was to be a civilized human who is above the kind of blood vengeance that created The Tetradome Run.

  But maybe I’m not above any of it. Maybe I’m just as vengeful as the most devoted Tetradome watcher. Maybe the only difference between me and the domer crowd is that the domer crowd is honest about who they really are. About how we all have bloodlust in our hearts.

  CHAPTER 56

  Gabe landed in Vegas, got a cab at the airport, went to the Polaris resort, gave his bags to a bellhop, and presented his ticket at the front desk. The clerk gave him an admission badge for the watch party.

  She pointed to the private club at the north end of the casino.

  “Doors open at six,” she said.

  In the Tetradome Control Room, Jodi looked at a bank of televisions and called out camera cues.

  Nobody knew where Bart was. His absence had gone from oddity to emergency to a reality they had to accept. They were minutes away from the starting gun. They had run the whole pregame show without him.

  Telling herself this was her moment, Jodi called the cue for the pregame’s final commercial break.

  “Places people,” she said. “We’re about to go live to the biggest audience in the history of television.”

  Three guards took Jenna down the entry ramp, stopping just shy of the arena entrance, where all the contestants were bunched together.

  “Look who decided to join us,” Harold said to her.

  She squeezed past him, pushed her way past Malcolm and Solomon too, worked to the front of the ramp, where Nathan stood.

  He was staring out into the arena’s expanse.

  “Can you believe the size of this place?” he said.

  “Nathan I need to ask you something,” said Jenna.

  “Think of the incredible ingenuity that went into the creation of this structure,” Nathan said.

  “There are media reports,” said Jenna. “I heard one last night. They say we have a mutual friend.”

  Nathan waited a few seconds before responding. When he did respond, he
said, “Imagine if all the planning and effort that went into the creation of this building went to making the world a better place.”

  “Sunny Paderewski,” said Jenna. “You know her. She built a bomb for you.”

  The crowd in the arena was clapping and chanting in time with the music. RE-DEMP-TION! RE-DEMP-TION!

  “Nathan!” Jenna snapped. “Tell me about Sunny!”

  His eyes still looking up, Nathan leaned in closer to speak.

  “So many problems we need to solve,” he said. “The climate is changing, species are dying, people are starving, and the smartest minds in America chose to build…this.”

  “Are you guys planning something today? You and Sunny? Is something going to happen?”

  From behind them, a production assistant yelled, “One minute to cue!”

  Guards started shuffling around them. “Alright everybody, line up!”

  “Please tell me,” said Jenna. “I know Sunny has something planned. Tell me what it is.”

  Nathan turned to look at her. Two white eyes gleaming behind a mask of colorful tattoos.

  “It’s not personal, Jenna,” he said. “It never has been. There are half a million people in this complex today, and if I could pick one of them to save, it would be you. You’re the only innocent person in here.”

  Guards grabbed Jenna and Nathan, pulled them forward.

  “One of them to save?” Jenna said. “What do you mean?”

  “Come on, Inmate,” said the guard, yanking her into the arena. “Don’t make me click you.”

  “Nathan! What are you going to do?”

  A zap of energy behind her kidney. Jenna yelped in surprise.

  “That’s just a cattle prod,” said the guard. “Next time it’s a click.”

  Nathan was far away now. The guards were lining them up in order based on the numbers pinned to their shirts. Nathan was number 1. Jenna was number 11.

  The guard pulling on Jenna’s arm called to the others for help, and soon enough she had a crowd of them yanking her into position.