by James Smythe
‘And what do you see when you do?’
‘I see a darkness,’ she says.
The gate at the side of their house is open, she notices, and she goes to shut it, slowing to a walk as she approaches; thinking that she might stretch out right here, before she goes inside. She wants to avoid Laurence for a little while longer. Whether he knows about it or not, she feels guilty for talking about him. But as she gets close to the gate she sees the trashcans with their lids off, the bags gone from inside them again, and the chain that was holding the gate shut missing. The first time that they were broken into – that’s how Laurence sees it, that’s what he has always called it, that much of an intrusion – she thought that it was only hobos, going around taking the bags and pillaging them for whatever they could find. It was Amit who told them the truth, and told them how bad this was likely going to get. He presented them with horror stories, because his logic was to sell this as a worst-case scenario, and then let the reality hopefully be better. Start at the bottom, and then the only way is up. Now, they’ve gone through a heavy-duty chain, and they did it literally on their doorstep.
She picks up the trashcan lids and puts them back on. There are black marks on the metal, she sees. Scuff marks, they look like. She looks on the wall, and they’re there as well: and on the windowsill, on the fence. They go up to the first floor, the placement of feet as they climbed the outside of their house. She puts her feet where the marks are, trying to get up and see what the intruder would have seen. It’s tricky – whoever it was must have been taller than her, so she has to stretch to get her legs into the same positions as they held – but then with one leg on the fence and one on the window below, precariously jammed on the latch, she can see into her own bedroom. To her left she can see into Alyx’s bedroom as well; or she would be able to, if her curtains were opened. The angle would be terrible, but that’s barely the point. She sees something. There’s a nail up here, jutting from the brickwork. A piece of the house’s brickwork juts, a small sharp point of paint by her arm. There is something attached to it, perhaps caught on this when the intruder was up here: a tangle of blue thread. She pulls it off then she climbs down and drags the bin to the back of the garden, goes back and pulls the gate shut, picking up another broken lock from the floor, this time looking as if it’s been burned through; and she goes into the house. Laurence and Alyx are both on the sofa still, neither having moved in the entire time she was gone.
‘Somebody was here,’ Deanna says. She bends down and looks her daughter straight in the face. ‘Upstairs,’ she says. ‘Go get dressed, and keep your curtains shut, okay?’ Deanna dims the windows throughout the downstairs, partially blocking out the light, making them unable to be seen through. There’s nobody looking in; their garden is walled, too high to climb over without help, and beyond that there is just the field and then the woods and then the lake. There’s no vantage point to spy on them, but again, that isn’t the point. ‘I was outside, in the alley. They used the trashcans to climb up. They were at the windows, Laurence. I found this, as well.’ She holds out her palm, the blue thread in it.
‘What?’ He knows this color. He imagines the man in the blue jacket there, peering in at them.
‘I’m calling the police,’ she says. ‘We can’t have this.’
‘Don’t mention the video,’ he says. He feels sick: if that got out, a cop with loose lips, he’d be ruined. Back when, somebody leaked the news about Sean before Amit had put out a press release. Laurence always imagined it was one of the staffers from the sheriff’s department.
‘Don’t be so fucking selfish,’ she replies. She picks up the handset and dials 911.
Amit arrives before the sheriff’s department does, and he talks to Deanna and Laurence out at the front of the house. Alyx stays upstairs, playing her game, totally unwilling to be distracted. Laurence tells Amit that they’ll talk about the other stuff later; Amit nods. He’s not worried about who is in the right in this situation. Laurence will see sense, he knows, because he’s always been that way inclined. He’s always been able to see the wood for the trees; that’s why he’s perfect for politics. The long game, and the hard choices: navigating those is a skill that Laurence holds tight to himself. They show Amit what happened and he tells them to calm down. He manages the situation, because that’s his job.
‘Just remember to stay calm,’ he says. ‘This goes better the more reasonable you are about it all.’
‘This is our house,’ Deanna tells him.
‘And this is my job. I’m here to protect you guys. You play it calm, collected and it makes it seem more as if there’s a real threat. Then you’re not just being hysterical and blowing this out of proportion.’ He looks at Laurence as he says it. The doorbell rings, and Deanna goes to answer it. As soon as she’s gone Amit turns to Laurence. ‘Did you see the second video?’ he asks. ‘You haven’t answered your phone.’
‘Yes,’ Laurence replies. He looks at the floor. He is trying not to picture the scene – the gun, his family cowering – as the police officers walk in. Laurence recognizes them: they’re like everybody else here, have lived here their entire lives. He smiles, his big, false, would-be presidential smile, and he shakes the hands of Officers Robards and Templeton. They were there when Sean died. It was Robards who tried to save their son: who gave him mouth to mouth; who held his body and kept it warm until the ambulance arrived; who was a pallbearer at Sean’s funeral. Laurence knows both of their parents as well. Not to have dinner with, but to stop and talk to in the streets, and to ask how they’re doing, to make small talk with, to canvas for votes from. Both men are almost implausibly young, Laurence thinks. They both have moustaches, as if to make them look older and more authoritative, even though neither of them seems at ease with the room. Deanna introduces Amit. Templeton asks Laurence how the campaign is going.
‘It’s fine,’ Laurence says. ‘It’s good.’ It’s a lie, Laurence knows, but his voice doesn’t show it.
‘I’ve seen you on the interviews,’ Robards says, ‘and you’ve been coming across real well, I’d say. My parents are voting for you, that’s what they tell me.’
‘What about you?’ Laurence asks.
‘Oh, I’ve never voted yet,’ he says. ‘Barely know what’s best for myself, let alone the best of the country. But if I do,’ he adds, ‘it’ll be for you, Mr Walker.’ They sit and accept the coffee that Deanna offers them. ‘Mrs Walker tells us you’ve had an intruder?’
‘Yes,’ Laurence replies. ‘Somebody’s been breaking into our trash, cutting the lock on the gate. Spying through the windows.’
‘Can we take a look?’
‘We’ll show you,’ Deanna says, and they follow her and Laurence, carrying their drinks with them. Amit waits in the kitchen. He looks at the fridge: at the photograph stuck there of the five of them; at the hand-drawn notes and pictures, signed by all three kids from various stages of their lives; at the calendar on the embedded screen, which has a color-code for each member of the household, including Sean still, the sea-green color reflecting what are now the only two important days of the year for him (his birthday, the day that he died). He pulls down the photograph. Laurence looks so calm in it. This was the man that was going to win the election, unite the party, do good for the country – or, at least, as much good as he was able to get through congress. Amit looks out of the window at him now. He is standing behind the police and Deanna, watching what they’re doing. He’s barely present, his face sagging, a gray-yellow color. Amit wonders if ClearVista’s algorithm can somehow decipher the images it dredges from the Internet for the video as well. Maybe it’s looked at him now – a picture of him recently, compared to how he used to look – and decided that he can never lead the party, let alone the country. It has seen how sallow he is.
That doesn’t explain the videos though. Nothing explains them. The back door clicks, and Deanna walks in with the police officers, and they walk through. Laurence follows at the back of the pack. He
shuts the door and stares outside for a moment, as if he’s watching for something.
‘It’s straightforward, now,’ Robards says. ‘We stick this house on the rotation, so a car’ll come by every hour or so, drive past, keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. You guys call this number,’ he says, handing Deanna a business card, a security firm’s details, ‘and get a new gate fitted. Get something with barb at the top. Get yourself an alarm as well, one that links right to the station. I know, this is Staunton, not New York City. But you probably can’t be too careful, that’s what I reckon.’
‘There’s something else,’ Laurence says. He offers the thread to the officers, extending his arm out, turning his palm upwards. ‘I have seen a man in a blue jacket a few times. He’s following me, I think. Maybe a reporter, something like that.’ He’s chasing me, he thinks. There’s a conspiracy.
‘And you found this outside?’ Robards asks.
‘I did,’ Deanna says.
‘Could you describe this man?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Laurence says.
‘I’ve seen him,’ Amit says. ‘White man, mid-forties, bit of stubble, greyish hair.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Afraid not,’ Amit says. ‘He just looks like a normal man.’
‘That spring anything else in you, Mr Walker?’
‘Just the jacket,’ Laurence says. He can see it, clear as anything; but everything else about the man is as if through a fog. Robards nods.
‘Okay. So, best we can do is put the blue jacket on the alert and hope somebody sees him. We spot him, we get him into the station, sit down and have a conversation with him. It’s likely nothing.’
‘So that’s it?’ Deanna asks.
‘Best we can offer. And it’s more than we’d offer most folks, because you’re higher profile, Mr Walker.’ He smiles; they share something, in Sean. ‘And, you know, because we like you guys. Anything else happens, you just call us.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’ He reaches out his hand to the officers and they shake it, one by one. Deanna watches it happen, as if in slow motion: his thin, alien arm up and down, his smile drawn back, the lines around his mouth belying his weight loss. They leave, escorted out. Deanna shouts at them to pass her love onto their mothers. This is what happens when you live in a small town; they know you. And they know Laurence; or, at least, the Laurence that he used to be.
The three of them sit on the sofas and Deanna asks Amit about the video and the report. She wants to know everything.
‘It must have come from somewhere,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ Amit tells her. ‘I’ve got people on it. Look, it’s an algorithm. That’s the point. It’s all automated, ones and zeroes in a system that boots out this stuff at the other end. The video, it’s bullshit. If it had shown Laurence winning the election, it still would have been bullshit. This is an algorithm and some quick-fix CG generation software. Nothing more, not really.’
‘An algorithm?’
‘It’s what I worked on when I was there, before all of this. It’s a series of equations that tries to predict the outcome of a given situation when you feed it variables. But it’s more than that. Everybody’s got one of those. Ours – ClearVista’s – was built with these other software plugins. It data mines, for accuracy. They were trying to actually perfect this. You feed it answers to questions and it builds up a profile of you, and then it tries to reinforce or contradict that. It goes through everything it can: web pages, news reports, videos, photos, Facebook, Twitter, whatever it can find. It builds up a perfect picture—’
‘It’s not perfect,’ Laurence interrupts.
‘No, it’s not. It’s meant to know who you are, and then make the results based on that. Close to perfect. Laurence asked the algorithm if he could be President; it tried to give us the best answer it could. Complicated thing, because it’s not just him. With something that big, it’s other voters, voter behavior, existing policies, other candidates. So much goes into it.’
‘And the video?’ Deanna asks.
‘That’s just a cherry. It’s a bit of promotional crap, meant to be a glimpse at your future. It’s nothing,’ he says.
‘So they got it wrong?’
‘Or somebody interfered,’ Laurence says. He leans in, as if there might be people listening. ‘Have we thought about that?’
‘It’s unlikely. The company isn’t going to be bought. This is probably just an error. It’s a fucking terrible one, and we’ll sue the living shit out of them, but it’s only ever going to be an error.’
‘What if it’s not?’
‘Then …’ Amit shakes his head. ‘Then I don’t know.’
Amit sits in his car and calls Hershel’s number. It’s answered straight away, but it’s not Hershel’s voice. It’s a female voice, a lazy Californian drawl, her greeting upon answering almost noncommittal.
‘Can I speak to Hershel?’ Amit asks.
‘I’ll ask him,’ she says. There’s murmuring, and then she comes back. ‘Who is it shall I say is calling?’ She asks it in a faux-receptionist voice that erupts into giggles.
‘It’s Amit Suri,’ he says. She says the name, and then there’s a click and Hershel shouts. It’s on speaker.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘My man, I’ve got nothing for you.’ Amit imagines him lying in bed with that girl, smoking, eating cold pizza, whatever. He doesn’t owe Amit anything; it’s not like he’s being paid for this.
‘It’s fine,’ Amit says, knowing that it isn’t. ‘Let me know if you get anything.’
‘Okay, sure. Oh! One thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘The sound in the video. That crack at the end. You hear that?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m getting somebody to try and work out exactly what it is. I’ve got some people on it.’ Amit balks. Hershel’s asked a friend to do this, or maybe hired somebody. The circle that knows about this video has opened.
‘As long as they’re people you trust,’ Amit says. He hangs up. He presses the button to call ClearVista, because he wants them to run this one more time. He wants to see what changes and why. They say that somebody will be calling him back shortly, the same message as before. The cycle, all over again.
When nobody is looking, Deanna watches the video over and over. She feels as if she is drilling it into her head. She thinks that this is unfair. All she did was marry somebody with ambition, and it was an ambition that he didn’t even know he had when they met. And then children, and a future. He dreamt of something: of trying to contribute to making this better, all of this. That’s all he wanted.
She doesn’t sleep. She wonders what happens after the clip that they have seen. She tells herself to forget that thought, because it’s not real. But still, why end there? Why not show what happens next?
There’s been a vote on inner-city education in troubled areas, one of Laurence’s key areas, and Amit tries to keep track of the mentions of him across the blogs. They all seem to be discussing the importance of structure and implementing systems that could help. The current government are putting money into keeping the kids in schools and upping security; Laurence wants to syphon the money into making sure that the schools understand issues that help them to support the kids at home better, to raise general educational awareness – subtle differences, but a huge divergence for where the money should be going. There’s a bill proposed, one that Amit knows is nothing more than a Hail Mary: an attempt to get something passed within the final year that will benefit them if they carry on, and if not screw up the first term of the Democratic run as they try to undo it. Laurence’s policies and ideas are all invoked as potential solutions. Potential candidate; likely candidate; wunderkind; would-be party savior. The Fox News website has a video about him, almost all of the footage taken from a long time ago. He looks so healthy compared to now, and that’s something they need back if they’re going to win this. His hair was so strong, and his skin good, and he looked
All-American. This is something to get the heartland behind them. They like the ideal, and Laurence can be that, quite easily. Amit makes notes to hire a nutritionist, or at least get a consultation; and to get Laurence some suits that don’t hang off him, maybe get some photos taken of him in jogging gear, doing exercise, that sort of thing. That’s a way of controlling the weight loss. And he writes Doctor on his phone as well, because he wants him checked out. The vote is fast approaching. Assuming that Laurence makes it as the candidate, he’ll have all sorts of medical checks. They need to be prepared for every eventuality. And, Amit thinks, looking at recent pictures of Laurence, they are anything but.
9
Jessie Ng is working late, because they’ve put her on the post-cycle Breaking News team. These are the stories that come in after America is asleep, when very little ever happens. She’s been told that, if there’s an explosion somewhere else – a list of countries on a giant whiteboard, the names listed in order of crisis state – she’s to call certain numbers, get other people involved. Everything else, those who are working the graveyard shift are to handle. Tidy up the stories; get them ready to go on the air in a package; let the senior editor see them, okay them, put them out.
Her team orders in some pizza, because there’s a place that stays open all night on their block. It’s not good pizza, but that hardly seems the point. The point is: cheese and bread and meat and Coke (and, for some, coke) to keep them going, and the team – six of them, not counting the interns and the tech guys who are forced to be here with them – get together in the boardroom and take ten minutes and don’t talk about the news. Other topics that are embargoed: better food; their beds; the drinks, fun, arguments or sex that they could be having. So they talk about music or TV shows or movies or books and they treat it like a ten-minute respite from the rest of the night. They work a ten-hour shift. Most of them smoke still, because it’s a burst of something when you need it, standing out in the night air, shivering to wake yourself up. It’s a cycle that they know all too well, because this is the shift that you are forced to work if you want to stand any chance of being promoted. Most of these six, Jessie included, have been here for well over a year now. There’s little sign of promotion until it suddenly happens – that’s how they keep you hungry and working – so they’re all hanging on. It’s what you do.
