The Word Exchange

by Alena Graedon

  Vern did seem concerned: he was staring at me. Everyone else avoided looking my way. For several moments the discomfort in the room felt almost electric. To discharge it, Clara said, “You have to be careful, Vernon.” Her head and neck twitched, hair jouncing.

  “Yeah. And not just because of what you’ve told us about your friend John Lee …” Archie said, spinning a finger by his ear.

  “Wait,” I said, eager to latch onto a distraction. “What’s wrong with Johnny?”

  Vernon sighed. “He’s pretty sick. We’re not in touch right now.”

  It was only then that it occurred to me how few slips I’d heard during the meeting. When I remarked on it, Dr. Thwaite said, “Actually, there’ve been a few.” He glanced meaningfully around the room. “All yours.”

  I felt my face grow hot. “Really?” I said. “When? I-I had no idea. I’m so sorry.” But then I stopped talking.

  “It’s all right, Anana,” Victoria said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “No one blames you. And Phineas was exaggerating. It was only one or two. Not enough to do any harm.”

  “We hope,” Archie said.

  “You feel all right, don’t you?” Victoria asked, the corners of her mouth curving faintly down. “No headache or fever?”

  I nodded, head throbbing, furtively feeling in my coat for the pill bottle.

  “And we’ve put a few safeguards in place here at the library,” Victoria said, tenting her hand down. “Please forgive me for not going into detail—”

  “What she means,” Susan interrupted, “is that she’s not sure she can trust you.”

  “Thank you, Susan,” Victoria said, shaking her head. “Anana, I’m sorry. Please don’t listen to Susan. I’ll just say we’ve made certain modifications to the building”—right away I thought of the renovations—“and instituted a few rules to mitigate our risk.”

  Susan, smiling wryly, asked, “Now do you understand why we don’t allow phones?”

  “Cell phones?” I asked, confused. “I mean, I-I’ve heard those rumors, too, I guess, that it could happen just by talking on a phone, but I thought … I thought …”

  “What did you think?” Susan asked, tipping her head like a bird of prey.

  “I didn’t really think the virus could be transmitted that way. I’ve … heard different things. And I thought, at least a Meme—” I felt my face start to warm. I was annoyed not just at Susan but at myself, for letting her get to me.

  “What makes you think we’re just talking about the virus now?” Susan said sharply.

  And as soon as she said it, I shivered. I didn’t even need to ask what she meant. Rodney’s arm was in a sling; he’d had twenty-two stitches. I was the one who’d told them the story. Even cell phones, I thought I’d heard when I was young, had once raised privacy concerns: they could be used to track users’ locations, or hacked to act as microphones.

  I nodded. “I see,” I said grimly. Another silence swallowed the room. Then, after gnawing the seam of my cheek, hesitating for just a moment, I plunged ahead. “Actually … lately I’ve had the feeling sometimes that I’m being … followed.” I felt all their eyes fall on me.

  “Were you followed here?” Susan shrilled, face igniting into a mottled, inkblot red.

  “Of course not,” I said, also hotly marbling. Quietly, I added, “I’m almost sure.”

  “Wonderful,” Archie said, tossing up his hands.

  “I’ve been very careful,” I clarified. “And the police put a car outside my apartment.”

  “How reassuring,” said Dr. Thwaite, squinting at Susan.

  Susan folded her arms over her ribs. Then she announced, “Well, I think it’s obvious. She should stay with you, Phineas.”

  Baffled, I thought I’d misheard her. But Victoria nodded. “I agree,” she said.

  “Uh.” I shook my head, confused. “I don’t know if that’s a very good idea.”

  An odd exchange ensued that unsettled me still further. Susan’s flaying glare fell on Dr. Thwaite. When he shrugged, saying, “You heard Anana,” she snarled, “Convince her, then. And don’t be a coward—she said she’s taken medicine.”

  My throat felt as if it were filling with glue. “Am I …” I swallowed hard. “Do you really think … I might be in danger?” Despite Doug’s disappearance and Rodney’s assault and the virus and everything else, it seemed impossible. Absurd.

  But Vernon’s face was tense. “We’re just saying it might not hurt to be careful.”

  I felt the room quickly spin. For a moment I thought I might throw up. If I do, I worried, they’ll be convinced I’m still sick with word flu. They were all staring, as if reading my thoughts. But they were just waiting for me to respond.

  I had no intention of staying at Dr. Thwaite’s. Our relationship, at best, was strained. The accretion of small lies and deceptions had poisoned things; misgiving had turned to mistrust. And he was clearly afraid I’d infect him. (I was a little afraid of that myself.) But I wanted their eyes off. I wanted the meeting to end. So I nodded. Took a few deep breaths.

  Why did they think I’d be safer at Dr. Thwaite’s? I had a police car on my block. If I really wasn’t safe at my apartment, I’d stay somewhere else. In the East Village with Coco, or in Bushwick with Theo. In my studio. At my grandparents’, even.

  If things were different, it occurred to me, I might be asking if I could stay with Bart. The thought brought a cold, electric jolt. I wondered why he’d called—if I should risk calling back. It had been days since we’d spoken.

  When the meeting ended a few minutes later, I walked up behind Vernon, who was pouring coffee, and gently tugged his coat.

  “Vern,” I said, “I need to ask you something.”

  “Hey,” he said, face crinkling kindly. “You okay?” Put an arm around me.

  I shrugged and hugged him back. “You said—you’re not talking to Johnny. Can I ask—” I steeled myself. “What about … How’s Bart?”

  Sighing, Vernon set down his coffee. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he said, and my heart struck a low, broken chord. He squeezed my arm. “But I think it would probably be better if you weren’t in touch with him right now.”

  I took a step back, to look up into his face. Asked, “Just now, though, right?”

  But Vernon looked away. “I’m really sorry. You know he’s working with them—doing a project with Hermes. Also … he—he’s got it pretty bad.”

  The room felt suddenly hotter. My chest tightened. But I didn’t have a chance to ask him anything else, because at that moment I felt the weight of a different arm and smelled the light, slightly sweet scent of almond. Startled, I turned. And was shocked to see the glare of red glasses.

  “I like your shoes,” Susan softly growled. Vernon discreetly sauntered off.

  “You do?” I asked, glancing down at my braided blue clogs, nonplussed.

  “Yes,” she said, solemnly nodding. “But there’s something else I wanted to tell you.” Glancing around the room, she added in a husky whisper, “Do you know what my favorite shoe is?” I’ll admit it: she scared me. I didn’t speak. Just shook my head. And she leaned in so close her lips nearly grazed my earlobe, which tingled. She murmured, “The oxford.”

  At a loss, I said, “It is?” Tried to back away a little.

  “It is,” Susan said. “And it’s extremely nice of me to tell you that.”

  Then, just as Victoria called, “Susan, what are you doing to Anana?” she lifted her arm off and said, “Just making her feel welcome.”

  “I’ll bet,” said Dr. Thwaite. And to me, he explained, “Alice, I’ll have to let you out. Why don’t you wait on the mezzanine? I’ll be down soon.”

  It was dark, but I thought I remembered seeing a floor lamp in the Johnson nook. With a clack, it conjured a runny cone of light, which glinted off the globe on the cover of the grimy atlas I’d abandoned. I lifted the heavy book from the ottoman. Slumped down to flip through a second time. Turned again to Iceland. The
Antilles. The United Kingdom, whose page was especially dirty. And all of a sudden my mind clacked, too. I glanced down at my blue shoes.

  But there was no time to bask in the glow of my insight; right then I heard the elevator doors open on the ground floor and Dr. Thwaite calling impatiently, “Alice? Are you coming?”

  “Just a minute!” I yelled, quickly finding the slim index I’d tucked back into the atlas. It was an old, dog-eared postcode map. From a time when people still wrote letters.

  “All right,” bellowed Dr. Thwaite. “But we can’t leave without you.”

  “I’ll be right down!” I called. Hastily found the germane page. Frantically skimmed the list. And there it was. I closed the atlas as softly as I could. Slid it under the chair. Then clanged, in my heavy clogs, down the winding metal stairs to join the others.

  Outside, a thin, unpleasant mizzle of wintry mix was falling. But I didn’t care. I’d cracked the code. I knew where Doug had gone. His notes didn’t say OXIDP after all but OX1 IDP. It was a postal code, in the U.K.: the ratty index someone had slipped inside the atlas covered Britain.

  When I got home, I hauled the big plaid suitcase out from under my bed. Unclasped the lock and removed the Aleph. And next to the word I was looking for, it said: “ox•ford ’äks-fƏrd n : a place where they make dictionaries.” I started packing the suitcase.

  But it was quiet in the apartment. Too quiet. Just the soft hush of shoes and shirts sliding on the suitcase’s liner to keep me company. Out of habit, not thinking of the risks, I turned on the sim screen. And instantly stopped cold, stomach falling. Not quite believing it, I saw Max’s large pink face floating in my bedroom for the first time since he’d packed and moved away six weeks before. A teaser for a nine o’clock live interview on PI News.

  I retrieved the bourbon from beneath the kitchen sink. Pulled a chair up to the screen. And soon the news started with a lonely trumpet. The trill of a sympathetic violin. A silver globe spun into view, overlaid with PI’s trademark concentric circles as the percussion thundered in. Then the voice of the host. Confident. Mellifluous. “What if I told you,” he intoned, “that our country is at war? Not a war fought with tanks, lamition, and grenades but a war of words. What if I told you that the frontline is not in some distant hove place but right here at home—indeed, in your very own home.” As the camera panned back, revealing its handsome host seated behind a giant mirrored desk, blue monitors behind him, the date—Wednesday, December 5—shimmering in white at the bottom of the screen, the silver-haired man with the grave expression said, “Good evening, everyone. I’m Laird Sharpe. And tonight we have a very taro investigative program for you, on an alarming controversy sparked by this man”—a snapshot of Doug hovered above Laird’s left shoulder; in shock, I turned the volume up—“who’s been missing now for over two scores. Authorities have so far been unable to slot the lexicographer, who some claim was abducted, others claim fled. Who is he? His name is Douglas Johnson, and for weeks suspicions have been mining over a contagious language virus he allegedly helped jend.”

  I choked on a sip of bourbon, and my throat burned. Laird, it seemed, was unafraid to commit libel. Wasn’t that what it was? Why, I wondered, was Laird even reporting this so-called news story? I knew the journalistic bias rules had slackened—“There’s no such thing as a disinterested third party,” Max used to say—but this seemed extreme.

  Appalled, rapt, I listened to Laird continue on. “Most of you, no doubt, have become aware of this virus. For the past two weeks, as it’s started to appear in cities and suburbs across the country, it’s been reported on heavily. News stations, including this one, have been interviewing experts on how to prevent and manage symptoms, which can be quite serious—in some cases deadly.” The camera moved in close to capture Laird’s concern. “Estimates range, but some experts shungzee that as many as two dozen people have died from the virus, most in and around New York City, San Francisco, and Boston.

  “Perhaps you’ve noticed some occasional odd slips in my own speech,” Laird said gravely. “I assure you, I’ve been completely unaware of them. But while recording this lansok, my cameramen and crew pointed them out to me—we’ve left them in, for verisimilitude.

  “We’ll have more on that for you later in the hour. But first—” Here Laird turned to a different camera, intimately locking eyes with the viewer and smiling. I shivered, recoiling slightly. “We have a special live guest in the studio tonight, here to discuss the remarkable rise of a groundbreaking company. A company we may think we all know—Synchronic, Inc. Over the past eight years Synchronic has been on a meteoric rise, from its humble beginnings as a small garage start-up to the information and technology giant we’re all so familiar with today.

  “Most of us may think of Synchronic primarily as an electronics and software company—the brains behind the wildly popular global phenomenon the Meme. And with excitement ramping up over its highly anticipated new Nautilus Meme, which Synchronic will launch Friday at its Future Is Now gala—and which we’ll be covering live here on PI starting at eight p.m. Eastern Time—it’s not difficult to understand how it’s earned that reputation. I’ve been hearing that the Nautilus is like nothing any of us has ever imagined or seen.” Laird’s cheeks hollowed in practiced disbelief even as his eyes took on a knowing sheen. “Apparently I’m not the only one—we’ve been hearing that some consumers actually started lining up outside stores days ago in anticipation of the new Nautilus. A few analysts are projecting more than seven or eight million sales in the first week alone.3

  “But while Synchronic may be less well known for some of its other ventures, it’s also had a long history of involvement with media and publishing, including a special, niche interest in dictionaries. And with the help of my guest”—for a moment the camera cut to Max, and my heart kicked like a caught animal—“Synchronic has recently begun expanding into the realm of gaming. At Friday’s gala it’ll also be promoting a big new product that many of you are probably already familiar with, Meaning Master, which has become quite a sensation since its release a month ago.

  “I’ve been told that on Friday game contestants will be able to compete for a few prizes worth … a hundred thousand dollars? Have I got that right?” Laird asked Max, raising his groomed brows. Max nodded. “One immediate concern about the game—which is part of the reason we’ve invited its creator, Hermes King, onto the show tonight—is that with the recent appearance of the so-called language virus, some radical anticonsumerist groups have actually been advocating that people take the extreme step of temporarily not using a Meme, which they claim is somehow ‘responsible.’ ” Laird’s voice took on a tone of softly sardonic indulgence. “And Memes are how most people play Meaning Master—not to mention how lots of us do plenty of other things, like get up in the morning,” he added with a buttery laugh.

  “Of course, in recent days we’ve heard from some doctors and scientists everything from recommendations to avoid ‘unnecessary linguistic transactions’ on one end of the spectrum to suggestions simply not to come into close physical contact with people manifesting virus symptoms.” Laird shifted a little in his seat, like a runner on a starting block. “Or, on the other side, we’ve even been hearing that among those who, due to health concerns, have opted to get Meme microchips implanted, some have actually been choosing to get those chips removed. And we’ve also heard of questions being raised about the safety of the new Nautilus Meme, which seems a little counterintuitive, if you ask me, since the Nautilus doesn’t require a chip at all, from what I understand.

  “In fact, all of these insinuations—that people should stop using Memes because of a virus—well, they do seem quite extreme. And I may be alone in thinking this”—he gestured a genteel hand toward his striped purple tie—“but it seems to me that if you have doctors and scientists telling you to avoid spoken interactions, then actually, conducting as much communication as possible through a device like a Meme, with which you can simply text and bea
m everything, is exactly what you’d want to do.

  “But I’m not the expert. And we’re lucky enough to have here with us in our studio a remarkable young man who also happens to be an ascending star in Synchronic’s empire, and more than capable, I’m sure, of answering any questions we might have about the putative word flu, the Meme, the Nautilus, not to mention his new game—and probably whatever else we might throw at him.” And suddenly Max’s face, looking very somber under warm, flattering light, again filled the screen. Reeling a little, I listened to Max and Laird exchange live greetings less than fifteen blocks away.

  “Max,” Laird purred. “May I call you Max? I know your friends call you that.” And Max hollowly laughed his blessing. He seemed uncharacteristically anxious. But I thought I must just be projecting.

  Then Laird said this: “Max, you enjoyed a special relationship with Douglas Johnson, did you not?” And I started to feel faint. When Max uncertainly nodded, looking even more on edge, Laird said, “Until recently you were romantically involved with his daughter, weren’t you?” And I leapt from my chair, ears ringing, and knocked over my bourbon. I rested my finger on the power button. But I was transfixed. Waited, queasily, for what Max would say next.

  Max, though, was taking a long time to say anything. He shifted uneasily in his seat. Set his jaw. Under the lights his eyes seemed to sparkle; they looked wet. Which was impossible. In our four years together, I’d never seen Max cry. Not even the night that he’d broken his arm slipping on an icy curb. My own eyes began to sting.

  But before Max could say anything, Laird cut in. “Please,” he said sonorously. “Take your time.” Then, to the audience—to me—he said, “For all our viewers at home, Max received some very upsetting news right before we went live.”

  I held my breath. Leaned toward the screen. Max bit his lip. I bit mine.

  Laird continued. “A few hours ago, one of his oldest friends was found dead, apparently of a self-inflicted knife wound to the chest. Police are investigating and haven’t yet released the young man’s name, pending notification of his family. Tragically, his death, too, seems to have been connected to the subject of tonight’s report. The young man had allegedly been very sick with the language virus. There’s some speculation that he may have committed suicide to end what had become an agonizing ordeal.”