by Sean Platt
Altruance frowned through much of the story, posing a few queries as the narrative spilled, but he let Ephraim tell it to the end. Ephraim, once uncorked, couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted. His hatred of lying and liars was as strong as Altruance’s, and the need to confess was like an iron blanket. Getting it out was a catharsis, no matter which way Altruance might judge.
By the time he finished (complete with his fabricated identity, every detail of his morning’s tussle with the disappearing dead Nolon, and his discoveries on the Reef island), Ephraim was exhausted but almost smiling. He honestly no longer cared what Altruance thought or whether he used the story to hang Ephraim high with Eden authorities. The poison was finally out instead of festering inside him.
“Something is going on here,” Ephraim said as Altruance considered him. “They made my brother go away, and now they’re on to me. You have to believe me, man. I’m not even asking you to do anything. Hell, you can even call Elle and Nolon back. Tell them you changed your mind. Take back the lies and tell them I was hiding in your house the entire time. Tie me up until they’re here; I don’t care. Honest. I just really, really need you to believe me.”
Altruance looked out the window. Then toward the foyer.
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Ephraim asked.
Altruance turned back to Ephraim and fixed him with his heavy brown-eyed stare.
“You may be crazy,” he said, “but I believe you.”
CHAPTER 31
NOT QUITE HUMAN
“So what now?” Altruance asked.
“What do you mean, ‘what now’?”
“What it sounds like. I told them you weren’t here, but I don’t know if they believed me. Maybe they weren’t willing to call me a liar since I’m gonna fork out a ton of credits for the Tomorrow Gene. I even got a little jab when Elle said, all friendly-like, that it’d be ‘very unfortunate if they ended up having to return to find Mr. Todd.’ So I’m thinking you don’t want to go home. But hell, what else you gonna do, E? Just hide? You done showing your face on Eden? Gonna stay here until the cavalry comes to save you? Hell. My kitchen is fun, but it’s not that fun.”
Ephraim looked out the window. He hadn’t thought about that, but Altruance was right. Maybe nobody knew anything, and he was jumping at shadows, but it sure felt like people were behind him at every turn.
He’d only been considering the current moment. He fled the Reef after almost getting caught in the storage room, run from the communication zone after deciding he’d maybe been overheard, hide in Altruance’s house when visitors came calling.
Now that Altruance had covered him and the coast was temporarily clear, Ephraim wasn’t sure what to do. Did his avoiding Elle and Nolon clear the decks, meaning he was safe to register for the next croquet game in the garden? Or was he supposed to remain in hiding?
He’d come to see Altruance for a reason — and that hadn’t been to hide. Between running and staying put, there was a third option — to go on the offensive. To stop laying low and see which feathers he could ruffle.
“Look. You’re involved too,” Ephraim said. “Remember this morning?”
“Yes. I remember most mornings.”
“Earlier, at breakfast, something I said got to you. About the ghost.”
“‘Ghost’?” He paused. “You mean those workers? The ones all in white?”
Ephraim nodded. “Like the one we saw. The one that fell off the mower and got chewed up. It didn’t have a face, Altruance. You know that wasn’t a dream.”
“Man, we were high. Both of us. I woke up in my bed.”
Ephraim was nodding, trying to get past this distracting wrinkle. “Me too. But not until later.”
“You mean, not until after you killed Nolon.”
“Well. Yes.”
“But Nolon’s fine. He was just at the door.”
“It wasn’t the same Nolon. The guy after me was dressed like a surfer. And—”
“Oh, well. You didn’t say he had on different clothes. Did you know Clark Kent and Superman are the same person? Easy to miss since Clark wears glasses.”
“He had half a beard, too. His hair was longer. It wasn’t the same person.”
“So, he’s got a brother. A twin.” Altruance made big erasing gestures in the air. “Man, you don’t even know any of that happened. Did they bleach your floor and fix your window, down to the re-glaze, while you slept?”
“Maybe they drugged me.”
“That’s what I’m saying, E. You drugged you. Like I drugged me. It was the Scream. You don’t know how you react to it. I’ve half a mind to give you some more, and then sit here and watch that you don’t get into any trouble, so both of us can see how much it fucks you up and makes you see things that aren’t there. Makes you imagine shit that ain’t happening.”
“It was real, Altruance. It was as real as this. I got back; I took a shower; Elle and Nolon came to my door just like they came to yours.”
“As real as this, huh?” Altruance’s tongue went into his cheek. “Maybe this ain’t real, either.”
“Very funny.”
Altruance made mystic swirls through the air with his hands. “You’re back in your bed, Ephraim! You’re not really at Altruance Brown’s house!”
“Seriously.”
Altruance exhaled, his shoulders dropping. “Let’s get real. I believe your brother used to work for Connolly. And I believe he disappeared ten years ago. You are lucid now, more or less, so I guess I believe that you ran out to the Reef and found some shit saying he’s dead. I’m sorry about that, by the way. But you gotta draw the line somewhere. If someone is after you, it’s because you’re trying to rake up dirt on Eden. Finding shit for this Fiona lady. But hell, E. Think about it. You saw a monster get shredded and killed a guy whose body and evidence vanished — a guy who just so happens to look exactly like the person you decided is chasing you? Sounds suspicious to me.”
“You saw that thing, too, Altruance. Remember?”
“I remember someone falling. I remember someone getting hurt. But it’s foggy. We were high and both drunk. I’m not convinced about any of it — let alone the juicier parts you keep insisting on.”
“Why did you help if you didn’t believe me?”
“I told you. I do believe you.”
“Not now. I mean, when I first came in here. You said I looked like shit. I didn’t even get to explain why I’d come; you only knew that I burst in wide-eyed — and when people came, I asked you to hide me. You’d heard none of what I’ve told you yet. You don’t like lies or liars, and yet you helped me without thinking. Why?”
“I guess because you’re my friend.”
Ephraim shook his head. “You know there’s something going on. I know you do. You don’t want to believe I might be right about the ghost, but you know I am.”
“You don’t know what I know,” Altruance said, sounding annoyed.
“Maybe it feels like a dream. But how could we have the same dream?”
“Let’s just say it happened. Someone got his arm and leg cut off, and we were there. It was an accident. Don’t prove anything.”
“Why do they wear masks? What are those things?”
“It was just a deformity. That one person. Good for him, finding work.”
“Why did the others just stand around? Why did the one steering just keep right on trying to drive? Why did nobody yell for help? It’s almost as if they didn’t even have mouths.”
“You don’t know that.”
Ephraim was shaking his head, building momentum. “When I got back from throwing up this morning, everything was gone. Everything. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. I know it wasn’t, because this is one of my things. I always help. I can’t stand by when things happen, so I wouldn’t let myself be away longer than ten minutes. My sister was killed when I was a kid, in public. People watched it happen but didn’t stop it. Years later I came on a gang mugging and broke it up. Couldn’t
help myself. I got it to stop, but the guys came at me and busted me up. It’s where I got this.”
Ephraim pulled his collar aside and showed Altruance the scarred-over muscle just behind his left shoulder where the knife had cut him.
“I made myself come right back after catching my breath. Maybe it was five minutes, but certainly not fifteen. In that time, they hid the machine, took the hurt ghost away, and scattered everyone else. They got you somewhere, maybe drugged, because you said you woke up in your bed. After sending me some strange pages, by the way—”
“Pages? I didn’t send you any—”
Ephraim waved a hand. “I can show you later. But the lawn where it happened? When I got back, all the blood was gone. Entirely. As if the grass was mowed. As if the ground had been washed. Tell me how they did all that in less than ten minutes? And more importantly, why, if there was nothing worth hiding?”
“Just because they’re efficient at cleanup doesn’t mean anything is being … I don’t know … covered up.”
“My clothes.”
Altruance looked at him, puzzled.
“My clothes,” Ephraim repeated. He’d been speaking to himself as an epiphany, but now he turned his wide eyes to Altruance. “They took my clothes. I took a shower when I got back. Maybe they couldn’t do to me what they did to you — putting you to bed or whatever — because I ran off too fast. So I walked home and took a shower. That’s when my bloody clothes vanished.”
Altruance laughed. “Now you’re acting crazy. They couldn’t get you on the scene, so they followed you close enough that they could steal your shit while you were in the shower? Man, that doesn’t even—”
“Check for yours,” Ephraim said.
“What?”
“Check for your clothes. Whatever you were wearing last night, find it now. Do you remember what it was?”
“Is this some a fashion audit? Are you checking to make sure I’m honoring my Nike endorsement deal?”
“I’m serious. Do you remember what you were wearing?”
Altruance shrugged. “My long tan shorts. White shirt? No, wait. It was the Varvatos. I wanted to impress you.”
“So where did you put those clothes?”
“Where do you think I put my clothes when I’m done with them?”
“I don’t know. You’re not in your house. Do you put them in a hamper? I’ve been tossing mine in a dry cleaning bag hung over a chair in my bedroom.”
“I’ve got a pile system going.”
“So, you know where you put those clothes. Into which pile.”
“I guess?” Altruance seemed unsure.
“Show me.”
Altruance looked like he wanted to make another joke, but something in Ephraim’s expression shut his mouth.
He rose without a word, and Ephraim followed.
The house was enormous. On the third floor they reached the apron of an expansive master suite.
“There.” Altruance pointed.
“I don’t see tan shorts.”
“I’m sure they’re in there.”
But they weren’t. Nor in any of the other piles. Ditto the John Varvatos shirt Altruance remembered wearing and that Ephraim, remembered seeing him in. The last time he’d seen that ensemble, it had been covered in the blood of a faceless man.
They checked the bathroom. Then the hamper, even though Altruance said he’d never used it. The clothes were nowhere.
“That doesn’t mean anything.” But the athlete’s face wasn’t as sure as his words.
“If nothing happened last night, where are your clothes? If they didn’t end up covered in blood, why can’t you find them to prove it?”
“We’re remembering wrong. That must not’ve been what I was wearing.”
“Bullshit.” Ephraim knew. They both did.
“This,” Altruance said, picking up a pair of black basketball sorts from the pile. “I wore these earlier.”
“Not out. I remember. Check your MyLife. You didn’t turn it off for privacy until later in the day, right?”
So Altruance did, using the app on his Doodad to locate the record rather than the manual controls behind his ear. He didn’t project the images onto the bedroom’s screen so Ephraim couldn’t see what Altruance saw on his retinas. But it must have unsettled him. That, Ephraim could see on his face.
“Maybe I changed between my last MyLife and when we hit the bar.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying. If I can’t find that shirt, maybe I didn’t bring it. That’s the only thing that …”
Ephraim didn’t need to cut him off. Altruance just stopped speaking.
“Come on. You know I’m right. You know you were wearing those clothes last night, and now they’re gone.” Ephraim shook his head, then met Altruance’s suddenly uncertain eyes. “Someone took them.”
“Why would they do that?” He was gazing around, seeming to internalize the idea that to snatch his clothes — bloody or not — someone would need to be standing where they were right now. On the third floor of his rented mansion. Inside his bedroom, probably while he slept and his mind tried to rewrite a morning mystery.
“I don’t know. But I do know that my brother is dead and that he went missing, here, before that happened — probably living on Eden, on the Denizen. And I know that the island is keeping secrets they don’t expect anyone to uncover. Or maybe — given that the only law out here is Evermore’s — those are secrets that they’re allowed to keep.”
Altruance was silent, wide-eyed, looking lost. Finally, he said, “That thing we saw last night. That … man, from the mower. He didn’t have a face, did he? And not from a deformity. He was … they all are … not quite human.”
Altruance’s eyes said he wanted Ephraim to disagree. To tell him that he’d taken it too far. To insist that Ephraim had been poking at coals, but now Altruance had built a blazing fire of absurdity on top of ridiculous, unfounded assumptions.
Ephraim shrugged.
“I only know what I saw, and what those documents I told you about might have meant. And the rumors.”
Altruance nodded. Yes, the whole world had heard Eden’s rumors.
“Like I said,” Altruance went on. “What now?”
“I think we need to go to the Denizen. I don’t like how walled off it is. How nobody’s supposed to go there. And I get this feeling — just a hunch, but I’ve learned to trust my hunches — that before Jonathan died, he lived on the Denizen.”
“I can’t swim, man,” Altruance said. “I don’t like the water. That’s why I got my house all the way up the cliff, away from the beach.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to go with me. Jonathan was my—”
“We need Sophie.”
“Sophie?” Ephraim felt his face scrunch. “What does Sophie have to do with this?”
“Nothing,” Altruance said. “But she has a boat.”
CHAPTER 32
JUST FOR KICKS
A-list beach rentals came with a small but relatively decked-out powerboat. Ephraim had noticed the garages on the docks pocking the beach when he’d flown in, but his mind hadn’t made the connection. Ephraim didn’t have a boat because his house wasn’t A-list enough, and Altruance didn’t have one because he didn’t like the water and his rental wasn’t on the beach. But Pierra Page probably had one. Gus, too. Same for the richest businesspeople in his group. It made sense. Island living included water sports, but serene spa living expected tranquility. The boats were provided to VIP guests — models with soft electric engines that packed plenty of power but worked in a whisper.
Ephraim noticed boats on the water as they walked the bluff path to the beach, where Sophie was staying. There were only a few, and all were either barely moving or stopped. Maybe they moved fast, but this place was more for sun than speed.
“I hate boats, man,” Altruance said. “Hate ‘em. Never learned to swim growing up. And d’you know what it’s like for
a grown-ass man to try and take swimming lessons? Especially a man with his face on Wheaties boxes? You look like an asshole.”
“Hire a private coach,” Ephraim suggested. “Learn in your own pool.”
“I don’t have a pool. Aren’t you listening? I can’t swim.”
The path was steep enough to need stairs at one point, so Altruance, who knew where he was going, filed down ahead of Ephraim. He watched the man’s enormous hand swallow the small metal railing, then turned to the water. The boats weren’t far from shore. Staying close, as if to fish the reef.
“Why isn’t anyone going out deep?” Ephraim asked. “That’s where the marlins are.”
“Marlins?”
“Fish.”
“Oh yeah,” Altruance said. “Fuck fish, too.”
“So why aren’t they fishing?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re freaked out by the miles-deep, soul-sucking depth of the open ocean.”
They passed an Asian couple Ephraim remembered from the tram, sitting in their mansion yard. They waved, and Ephraim waved back. A bit farther on they caught sight of Pierra, also in her yard, sunning. She appeared, from a distance, to be topless. Ephraim stared too long, and Altruance caught him.
“It’s cool, man,” he said. “I’m staring too.”
“Why do you think she’s here? She’s young. She can’t get much hotter.”
“Maybe just to relax? Probably bought one of the Omega packages.”
“‘Omega’?”
“You didn’t get the pitch, did you? Just went right into spy school.”
Ephraim’s head jerked at the mention of spying, but nobody was around to hear them. The path was mostly obscured by brush — a good thing, because technically, Ephraim was supposed to be hiding.
“It’s a series of upsells,” Altruance said. “They offer an ‘Omega level.’ Those are the relaxation packages. Like, just a vacation. But then they try to upsell you to Beta if they know you have enough scratch. That’s where you start getting some of the real serious rejuvenation treatments. I know Sophie’s gotten a few of those. They give you a DNA refurb or whatever. Spiff you up so you don’t have sun damage and shit; I don’t know. Tune your stem cells. I’m not a scientist.”
