Playing Tyler

by T L Costa

  I want to let his words wash away the wrongness of it all, replacing my doubts and fears and horror with relief. Want it more than anything. Gripping the tumbler, I close my eyes and wait to feel better. Wait to get some sense, any sense, that this could be anything other than wrong.

  The image of Brandon unconscious in the hospital bed thunders through my brain, tearing everything I am in half. “It is wrong, though, what we’re doing. I want to think that it’s not, but it is.”

  “I understand if you’re uncertain because of your brother’s situation. I’ll give you some more time.”

  “I don’t need more time.” My chest is so tight. Like he just took everything inside me apart and all I have left is these scrunched-up lungs and anger. “We’re fucking running drugs! Killing babies! Nothing you can say can make this right. Nothing.”

  “Think before you speak here, Tyler. I know you’re upset.” Warning, dark, low, forbidding, rides in his voice.

  “No.” Whirling, screaming, agony inside.

  “I would hate to see you throw away your future like this.”

  Somehow, through the chaos, I find the words and shoot them across the room. “Get out of my house, Rick.”

  His eyes go black. Like two pieces of coal going molten. “Don’t go against me. You’ll regret it.” But he turns, and he leaves.

  Can’t breathe. Can’t think. But I wait till he’s gone. Pull the cell out of my pocket. Find the voice recorder app. I hit stop. I have to call Ani.

  I knock. Knock, knock, knock, knock. Is she home? Why isn’t she answering her phone? Does she know? Did Rick call her? Is she too scared to talk to me? Rick better not have scared her off. We weren’t supposed to be doing this. Weren’t supposed to see each other. Would he hurt her?

  Hand meeting the hard wood of the door. Each knock rattling up my arm. I feel it in my wrists, my elbows, my shoulders. No answer to her buzzer. She has to be there. Somebody has to let me in. It’s not too late, is it? 11pm. No. Kids at Yale should be up. It’s a Thursday, they should be around. Someone should be here. Where is she? I pound both fists into the door. Loud, angry, pain now, aches rolling up both arms. Should have called first, but I tried to text from the car. My fingers just couldn’t stop shaking and my legs wouldn’t stop moving and the music on my iPod just wasn’t loud enough to calm the thoughts whirring around in my head and I just want to scream. “Hello?” a voice says over the buzzer. Not Ani. Her roommate. What’s her name? Becky? Clary? Christy? It’s Christy.

  “Christy, it’s Tyler. Ani there?”

  “No, she’s having a snack I think. Check the Buttery.”

  Damn! The Buttery. “Thanks.” I run around the side of the building, please let there be some kids coming out or going in through the side door to… Yes!

  “Hold the door!” I call. A little girl. She looks young but who knows? I can’t tell who would be too young to be here or not. She smiles and holds it open, swiping a strand of black hair up underneath her hat. “Thanks.”

  I brush past her. She smells like incense. Do they smoke pot at Yale? Guess so. The halls at Yale are like any other halls. Lifeless except for bad smells of spilled food and vomit and the chemical used to clean them. The smells from the Buttery hit me as I jog down the way. French fries and burgers and pizza. I nod at the guy working the register and scan the hall.

  She’s sitting under an old window with her ereader in one hand and a sandwich in the other. I think I am just going to break. Break from not knowing where to start or whether I should hold her or be pissed that she can look so normal when everything is so fucked-up.

  Walking up to the table I say, “You were right. About everything.”

  Her back straightens, she looks up. Her brown eyes are wide, glassy, and the color leaves her face in a stunned rush.

  Silence. I can’t say anything else. Want to explode want to yell but I see the tension in her shoulders and I see that look on her face and I know that she’s processing… that I have to be patient but I can’t.

  I say, “I told him I couldn’t do it, told him I can’t… can’t do that.”

  “Does he know about Brandon?” Her arms, her posture, her lips quiver.

  “Yeah. He was the only person I could really talk to for a long time, you know? But he thought I would take the money, keep taking the money, I guess most kids would still take the money but I don’t want to do this. I want to fly, I want to so bad, but drugs?” Words flake off of me, hitting the floor at my feet. Inert. Useless.

  “That guy, Ty, that guy on the phone who was a friend of Brandon’s… from Canada… do you think that this was what he was expecting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you remember exactly what he asked? You don’t think that he tried to talk to Mr Anderson, do you?”

  “No. I don’t think he’d be that dumb. That and Mr Ander… uh, Rick wouldn’t talk to him, anyway. Do you think he knows about us?”

  Ani, her eyes, oh God, the look in those eyes. She’s frightened. Really, truly, utterly frightened. My arms ache to touch her, to hold her, to lie to her with my body, to tell her that she’s safe and that everything that she has here at this school, at this job, everything she’s ever worked for can’t come down in a big pile of shit. But I can’t do it. Can’t lie. Not to her. Not ever. My hands clench into fists, and I push them down deep into my pockets.

  “No, I don’t think he knows about us,” I say. “We have to keep it that way.”

  “Yeah,” she agrees, voice wispy.

  “You almost done? Can we go upstairs?” We have to dig into this shit. Find a way out. Find a way to make sure she’s not dicked over because of me.

  She packs up the rest of her sandwich and stands. “Let’s go.”

  “What?” I ask, confused.

  Ani’s leaning into the screen of her desktop, pulling up mountains of records that I never knew she was keeping. “There is going to be a thread of code within that channel that links it to the drones overseas. We just have to isolate that code and then search the code on all the other missions, compress them into a file, and then send them to Althea. Tell them what’s going on.”

  “We can’t tell the people at Althea,” I say.

  “Why? I know the people at Althea have no idea, I just need to find out which codes are tracked overseas and Mr Anderson is busted. I’ve been backing up all of the missions from all of the test pilots over there anyway, in case my files here crap out.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “I uploaded a virus into the sim, to give me undetected access.”

  “Althea’s not good enough, though. If their name is linked with this then they’re screwed. Wouldn’t they want to hide it? Brandon’s always talking about how companies do what’s best for their bottom line, and scandal is never good.” I shrug. “They’ll destroy the link to the sim. Maybe have already.”

  “They haven’t.” She punches more keys, pulling up lines and lines and lines of code. “They don’t know that I’m in their system and using it for backup.”

  “Rick’s not going to take no for an answer,” I say, softly.

  She stares at the screen. Eyes distant.

  I fall back into her bed, kicking my shoes off and laying back so that I’m staring at the grim popcorn ceiling. “I think I pissed him off pretty good.”

  She dicks around with the computer.

  I run a hand through my hair, pulling, feeling it tug up tight against my aching skull. “I have this.” I hold up the recording from my phone. Love the app. Now I have Rick. Our conversation from the dining room. “We can back this up, right?”

  “Yeah, but, Tyler…” Her eyes look up at mine. Fear clouding them over a bit. “I wonder if it matters whether or not we have all this backed up, I mean, can’t he just kill us and take the hard drives? Destroy everything? It would be easy for him, I think.”

  A sinking. Like an elevator moving just too fast jolts through my system. Would Rick go that far? This is bad. He’s g
oing to hurt her. Eventually. Maybe. Will he? Please God let her be too valuable.

  “Can he deny this? I mean, how would that even be possible?”

  “I don’t think a lot of people know about this program,” she says, voice strong again as she pounds the keys of her laptop. “Aside from you, me and Rick, there are only four other pilots, and all of them are still in the dark. Didn’t you say that your friend Peanut tried the program? Is he one of the pilots?”

  “No, he only tried out the free version. Nobody I know actually got the upgrade. What about other people at Haranco? How many people are there, do you know?”

  “Just me and Mr Anderson here in New Haven. I tried to get into the system the other day and all of the access codes that he gave me don’t work on the company at large. There are a couple of other offices, but the whole company might only be ten people, we don’t know.”

  “Does he pay you?” I ask.

  “Yes.” She looks up at me. “The paychecks come from Haranco’s payroll department. From an office someplace else. I’d bet neither Haranco nor Tidewater OK’d Rick’s program. They may fund it, but I’m sure that they’re in the dark as to the details.”

  “How can he hide something like that?”

  “He runs the entire drone surveillance department for Haranco. This is only a very small subset of the program at large. And I bet that the retired Air Force guys flying the missions for Rick at Haranco’s base don’t fly over those trucks.” She shrugs. “They would have known the score.”

  Unlike me. I’m an idiot. “So it’s easy for him to hide us within his larger program.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Haranco will deny everything if he destroys what we have.” The thought of Rick standing over us with a gun feels and tastes and sits like iron in my chest. “So will Tidewater. They’ll deny everything, it’s self-preservation.”

  “He wouldn’t really kill us, would he?” she says, voice disjointed.

  That iron spike in my chest grows, heavy and bringing everything down, but it can’t erase the truth. Rick likes me, sure, but what if I was always just an asset to him? An asset that should’ve known better than to question him. To have a conscience. But he likes me. Loves me, even, maybe. My heart pounds. He wouldn’t hurt me. My throat gets dry. Couldn’t. “He doesn’t know that we’re together, you should be safe.”

  Her face softens, just for a second, then comes back together again, “We have to figure a way out of this.”

  “No doubt,” I say, and we both sit down to think. She searches for inspiration on her computer, copying more and more data onto portable hard drives, and I open up my phone. Can’t email because he can probably track that. God, I can’t believe this. This is just crazy. I log on to the gaming network. Need to get through to Peanut and Alpha, give them instructions in case, well, in case I don’t make it. Hate goodbyes. I suck at them. Should be glad I get a chance to say them, but I’m not, really.

  Do I have to say goodbye? Rick couldn’t kill me, he wouldn’t. I sure as hell couldn’t kill him, but he might kill Ani, though. I can’t let that happen. Can’t let him hurt her. Only how exactly do I stop him?

  CHAPTER 28

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2

  TYLER

  The phone’s ringing. Man, what time is it? I reach around across Ani. She’s crashed out sideways on the bed, can’t remember what time we crashed. It was late, though. Phone, phone, phone, where did I put my phone?

  The desk next to the bed. I grab it. 4am? Check caller ID. And just like that I feel like I just drank three Red Bulls all at once and I’m awake, alert, alarmed.

  “Tyler, son. I was hoping you’d calmed down. You seemed upset after our talk earlier, and I just wanted to make sure that you’re OK.”

  “I know a line of bullshit when I hear one. I’m not OK. You’re not OK.”

  “Think about what you are saying, Tyler. I see you’ve spent the night in young Miss Bagdorian’s dormitory. While I’m willing to forgive your outburst earlier, I will not do so again.” Oh shit, how does he know he can’t know now he’ll kill her for sure and it’s all my fault. Fuck, Tyler, keep it together you have to focus here focus or she’s dead. Focus or we’re both dead.

  I know that I should lie. That I should play along. Play along if not for my own safety, but for Ani’s, too.

  My fingers are numb. This is it. Everything that I ever hoped to be in life is about to just disappear right freaking now. Hell, my life itself is probably hanging on what I say. But I can’t fly cover for a bunch of drug runners. I just can’t. Even if I could, I would lose Ani. She would never forgive me if I went back, if I stick with the program. And I either take a stand now or not take a stand.

  “I’m saying that I want no part of you, no part of this.” My throat squeezes just a little and heat flashes up quick in my eyes, and I think about flying with him and talking to him and him always being there for me. And Ani. I think about Ani and how much it would hurt to lose her how much it would hurt to keep running drugs and dropping bombs on babies. “I’m sorry, man. I just can’t do what you want me to do.”

  Ani stirs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she listens, hair tangling around her as she pulls herself to sitting.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he says, then his voice lowers. “Women, Tyler, are the cancer that eats at men’s souls.”

  I look at Ani. Looking so sweet and smart and perfect and oh shit what if he hurts her and all I feel is rage, burning, aching, screaming up through my system and I try to keep my voice even, steady, calm. “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing I want to do. But you aren’t leaving me with a lot of options here.”

  He’s going to hurt me. Rick. Rick, who I always trusted even after I knew that I shouldn’t. Now he’s going to ruin my life, ruin everything. “You’re not going to hurt her, I won’t let you.”

  “I don’t see how you can stop me.”

  “You will see. Count on it.” My words are solid, fury making them stick, but still not able to hide the pain. I hang up the phone. Staring at it in my hand. I bang it down into the end table. “We have to leave, Ani. I’m sorry.”

  “What happened, what did he say?”

  “I can’t believe I brought my phone here, I’m such an idiot.”

  Right. Well, that’s the look I should expect when I say something like that. Her eyes are wide and she pulls her knees into her chest. “What?”

  “Cell phones. He tracked my phone, found out I’m here.” I hold up my phone. “I’m so, so sorry. You really have to pack.”

  I grab her face in my hands and hold her so that my lips are so close that she can feel every breath that I take. “We’ll take my mom’s car, we’ll drive someplace and call a paper, like you said, they’ll run the story and the reporter will know how to protect their sources and it will be fine.”

  “You can’t take your mom’s car, Tyler. He’s seen it. And we can’t leave the dorm together, he’ll be looking for us to leave together.”

  “OK, well, we’ll ditch our phones. Meet up at Brandon’s in like half an hour, OK?” I scribble his address down for her on a piece of paper.

  “I think I know where we can get a car. Before you ditch the phone can you call the Times? There’s some reporter there who wrote an exposé on Tidewater, Donovan Jones, I think. And check to see if that guy from Montreal, Brandon’s friend, called you back.”

  “Be careful,” I say. Want to say more. But can’t. Don’t have that kind of time. I kiss her. Quick. On the lips, then I hit the door.

  Ani

  Is this going to be enough? The virus is in and I use it. It takes all of thirteen minutes to send Tyler’s missions off to the cloud and onto a mountain of flash drives and the two backup hard drives I was able to scrounge up, not to mention the server that I tagged the last time I was at Althea. I stare at the address Ty wrote down on a scrap of paper, it’s not too far away. Can I breathe now?

  My hands are shaking. I can’t get them to sto
p. Drugs? Do I believe it, even? I mean, I see it, and I must have recorded hours of tape that proves it. To go through all the footage is going to take time. But I can’t be part of this. I can’t be part of a corporation that’s running heroin. I just can’t.

  Still. There’s no doubt of the imminent threat. Rick was trained to kill, he’ll have no problem killing us, or sending someone else to do it. The trembling rises up through my legs and into my chest, making it constrict with fear and something else – fury. As I throw an extra pair of socks into the bag, I can’t help myself, I pick up the phone, and I dial.

  “Miss Bagdorian, I hope that you’re well this morning.”

  “You jerk! You lied to me to get me to sign up for this job, then you lied to me about what I was really being hired to do. I get that you get off on lying to people, but I’m calling to tell you now that if you make a move to hurt either me or Tyler-”

  “Yes? What will you do? Hack into my bank account? Mess with my identity? I’m terrified. The firewalls of my little program at Haranco were all rewritten as you and Mr MacCandless slept the night away. You’re not getting our money’s worth at Yale if you didn’t expect that.”

  “Listen, Rick.” I take a deep, steadying breath, restraining the urge to scream. “You make one move to hurt me, my family or my boyfriend and I swear to you that I will make your program the headliner on the evening news.”

  “You know why people love the story about David and Goliath, Miss Bagdorian?” He waits. I say nothing. “People love it because the little guy wins. But that’s just a dream of the weak, Miss Bagdorian. The little guy never wins. It’s all just a lie.”

  I shove my toothpaste into my bag. “I will bring you and your company down. Just you watch.”

  “I don’t think you’ll have enough time to try.”

  Tyler

  Fuck. Where do I go? Need to think. Need to stop the spinning that won’t stop and the pounding in my head that won’t let me breathe. I need coffee. Need to think.