Sycamore 2

by Craig A. Falconer

Lisa sent Ty a Chifi telling him it was almost time to get up for breakfast. Someone soon appeared from Home, but it was Ernesto rather than Ty. On his way into the Pig-Out fast-food counter to lay out everyone’s breakfast options, he spotted Kurt sitting with Lisa and walked over.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he said to Kurt.

  “Where else would I be?”

  “I thought maybe Val had taken you out again. Do you know where she is?”

  “I think she’s collecting those batteries for the alarm,” Kurt said.

  “From Barnford Park?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ernesto waved his had to call Kurt over to speak privately. “We’ll just be a second,” he said to Lisa, showing her more respect than he typically had before Kurt arrived in the mall.

  “What is it?” Kurt asked, hushed.

  Ernesto leaned in close. “She didn’t take the key for the mail locker. That’s why I thought she was with you.”

  Kurt stepped back and saw that Ernesto was holding the key; the key that Val needed to get into the mail locker after entering her passcode and box number.

  “Don’t let on that we know,” Ernesto said. “I’ll put it back where it was and we’ll see what she says. If she says the batteries hadn’t arrived yet…”

  “What?” Kurt said. “What happens if she does say that?”

  “Well, I guess she’ll have some serious questions to answer.”

  ~

  Val arrived just over an hour later, which made sense in relation to the distance to Barnford Park. Kurt, now with Ty and Minter as well as Lisa, Chifi’d Ernesto to tell him that Val was back.

  Ernesto greeted Val warmly. “Were the batteries there?” he asked.

  Val hesitated. “I don’t know,” she muttered, visibly embarrassed. “I forgot the key.”

  “How the hell could you forget the key?” Ernesto moaned, with fake surprise but very real frustration.

  “I’m sorry,” Val said.

  The others watched on quietly, feeling for Val but also sharing Ernesto’s annoyance that her lack of thought would leave them without a warning alarm for the second night in a row.

  “Why don’t you put all of your sorries in a nice little box and get them out of my sight,” Ernesto said flatly.

  Ty started to speak up in Val’s defence but Kurt stopped him. He knew that Ernesto’s anger was cumulative, built largely on the unacceptable and unapproved risk that Val had taken in bringing Kurt to see Mary. This mishap with the key had clearly irritated Ernesto, but Kurt knew that it wasn’t his main beef with Val.

  Kurt noticed a slight grin on Minter’s face as Val walked away with her head down. Minter had disliked Val since the beginning, from the moment she first cuffed his hands. And while Kurt had a roughly average ability to put things behind him, Minter clung to grudges like sloths clung to trees.

  The mood in the group was awkward for the rest of the morning, but Val sat with Michael and Ernesto at lunch a few hours later as though nothing had happened.

  Michael’s role in everything seemed to have collapsed into near irrelevance and Kurt noticed that his gruff manner had softened, too, giving way to a more relaxed if not genial aura. It was as though Michael didn’t mind taking a back seat now that things were moving forward, what with Mary’s successful seeding and the Lemarchand developments.

  In private conversations with Ernesto, Michael even suggested that Sycamore might crumble without the group having to do anything. But Ernesto was not a man to sit back and hope for an outcome; like Kurt, he was there to get the job done.

  The most immediate job on Kurt’s mind was fixing Star’s Eye View for Lisa. When the three hours were up, he transferred the video onto his own computer and brought it to her and Ty’s bedroom. Kurt’s computer streamed the video to Lisa’s phone, which she was then able to view in full immersion.

  Lisa beamed with Joy as Trixilicious’s unedited vista appeared in her Lenses. “It’s like I’m her,” she said, walking around with her arms outstretched as if trying to touch things that weren’t there. “It’s like I’m actually her!”

  Kurt helped Lisa to sit down safely, which you were supposed to do before entering full immersion, then left her to it.

  “You are an absolute angel,” Lisa called as he walked away.

  Kurt was happy that she liked it.

  He caught up with Harry and Joyce during the afternoon, glad that they had settled nicely in their display bedroom and didn’t massively regret coming with him. Harry asked Kurt if there were any AA batteries for his CD-radio and Kurt said he would have a look.

  Kurt returned with four batteries after a few minutes. Harry put on one of Joyce’s old CDs.

  “Is Ernesto’s transmission still playing?” Kurt asked.

  Harry nodded. “It was this morning, at least. I check it every day.” He flicked the switch from CD to radio and Ernesto’s voice rang out. It was odd for Kurt to hear Ernesto talking in such grand terms again.

  “The future may be Sycamore’s but only if we let them have it,” Ernesto said, sounding much younger than he did in real life. “Right now, this moment… this is ours. All the lies in the world can’t take this away from us.”

  Kurt flicked the switch back to CD for Joyce and headed for the door.

  “I’ll let you know if it ever stops,” Harry said.

  “It won’t,” Kurt said. “But thanks.”

  He left their room and walked towards his own to charge his phone. When he was walking through the middle of Home, he heard Lisa calling his name.

  It sounded like she was in trouble, such was the strength of her shout, so he hurried. But when Kurt got there he found her lying comfortably on her bed, still watching Star’s Eye View.

  “Is that Kurt?” she asked, her vision otherwise occupied.

  “You do know you can take them out, right?” he said.

  “Rewind the video on your computer. Trixilicious said something about an event thing next week.”

  Kurt picked up his computer. “How far back? What kind of event?”

  “Just like two minutes. I shouted you when she finished saying it.”

  Kurt moved the video back three minutes to be sure. “What kind of event?” he repeated.

  Lisa spoke over the sound of Trixilicious, who was still talking about something else. “Something about a special event next week,” Lisa said. “SycaStars United or something? I think she said that her and the other top nine are going to Sycamore HQ for a publicity thing, or maybe… wait, this is it. Shush.”

  Lisa didn’t have in-earphones, of course, so she heard Trixilicious through the computer’s speakers exactly as Kurt did.

  They both listened carefully as Trixilicious repeated what Lisa had heard correctly the first time: that she was going to Sycamore HQ for the launch of an upcoming reality show called SycaStars United. “Even Isaiah Amos is going to be there,” Trixilicious said with excitement.

  This was it.

  There was no doubt in Kurt’s mind that this was it, the chance they’d been waiting for.

  And beyond that, there was surely something poetic in the fact that Amos’s penchant for public gatherings might well prove his downfall. In Kurt’s time with Sycamore there had been the Talent Search, Meet The Press, the bank-burning, and of course his scheduled Recognition Ceremony. Shortly after came the unity rally for Stacy, and most recently there had been the international TV spectacular that was Kurt’s funeral.

  All of these events took place within a tiny geographical area, and all were emceed by Isaiah Amos himself.

  Amos didn’t just love the spotlight; he needed it. Kurt knew the saying that even the mightiest oaks needed sunlight, but it seemed to him that Sycamore’s mighty leader needed more than most.

  After rewinding again to confirm the date, which was six days away, Kurt told Minter. The timelock expired in around 36 hours, which would give them plenty of time to get everything ready ahead of SycaStars United.

  Minter liked
the idea. It didn’t change much of what he was going to do, since finding the most incriminating evidence and leaking it to the widest possible audience had always been his plan. As when Kurt first suggested targeting Trixilicious, Minter agreed to do that while also sticking to the original plan of public sky-based displays.

  The key difference between this new opportunity and the prior general idea to use Trixilicious was that in six days time she was going to be in Amos’s company, looking right at him. The possibilities for creative ways to present the evidence in such a situation were almost endless.

  And with ten of the most popular SycaStars all looking at Amos during a heavily-advertised special event, it was likely that tens of millions of consumers would be looking at him, too.

  There was another part of Kurt’s plan that he had so far kept quiet, and if all went well it could tie in perfectly with his idea for what to do with the French journalist.

  Because Kurt knew that in six days time, right there in the heart of the city at Sycamore HQ, those ten lucky SycaStars might not be the only ones standing in front of Amos when his world came crumbling down.

  Another man might be there, too; a man who Amos might be somewhat less pleased to see.

  ~

  Kurt had an unsettled night despite his earlier excitement over the SycaStars United launch event, waking several times with concerns about the mall’s inactive security alarm. He knew that these concerns weren’t rational, but once they were in his head they were hard to shake.

  After getting little sleep until very late, he was still in bed at 9:15 when he felt his phone buzzing under his pillow. He pulled it out and saw that he had an incoming Chifi call from Harry.

  Harry?

  “What is it?” Kurt asked.

  “Hello?” Harry said. “Can you see me? I can’t see you.”

  “This is a voice call,” Kurt explained, his eyes hardly open.

  “Oh. Anyway, I think you might want to hear this.”

  “Hear what?”

  “Uh, well, the thing is… Ernesto’s radio message is gone.”

  Kurt sat up. “What do you mean gone?”

  “It stopped,” Harry said. “And I don’t think you’re gonna like what’s on in its place.”

  21

  Kurt ran to Harry and Joyce’s room, where he knew the radio was. Harry stood over the radio, unable to hide his concern.

  “What does it say?” Kurt asked.

  Harry turned up the volume. Kurt recognised the voice immediately. It was the one voice, above all others, that he did not want to hear.

  “The source of the illegal broadcast previously transmitted on this frequency has been traced to the vicinity of Barnford Park. The source of the illegal broadcast previously transmitted on this frequency has been traced to the vicinity of Barnford Park. The source of the…”

  “Enough,” Kurt said. “Has anyone else heard this?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “Does this mean he knows where we are?” Joyce asked.

  Kurt said no; it didn’t quite mean that. All it meant for sure was that Amos knew that someone from Ernesto’s group was collecting mail at Barnford Park. Fortunately, the whole point of using Barnford Park was that it was so far away. “80 minutes on a good day,” as Val had said.

  Val.

  “Where’s Val?” Kurt asked, urgency in his tone. “Has she left? Is she back?”

  Harry shrugged. “We haven’t been out yet.”

  Kurt ran straight to the workstation, hoping to find Ernesto. He saw him in the food court eating breakfast with everyone else. Everyone else but Val.

  “Where’s Val?” he asked them all.

  “Getting the battery,” Ernesto said.

  Minter was the first to spot the fear in Kurt’s eyes. “What happened, man?”

  “Nothing. I just didn’t think she was going today.”

  “Yeah,” Minter said. “We really need that battery, you know?”

  Kurt nodded, putting on his best blank expression. He then walked into the workstation and sent a Chifi to Ernesto: “Workstation, bring Michael.”

  The two men entered a minute or so later. Minter, not stupid enough to think that Kurt and Michael were in the same room for no reason, followed right behind them. Anthony came in next, leaving only Ty and Lisa out of earshot in the food court. At this point they obviously knew that something was going on, and their absence suggested to Kurt that they didn’t want to be any more involved than they had to be.

  “So what’s going on?” Minter asked, speaking for them all.

  “Amos knows about Barnford Park,” Kurt said, as straightforward as he could be.

  Everyone was silent until Ernesto replied, very calmly: “How do you know this?”

  “Your radio message is down,” Kurt said. “Now there’s just a recording of Amos saying he traced your transmission to Barnford Park.”

  “But Barnford Park wasn’t the source of the transmission,” Ernesto said.

  “Obviously,” Kurt said. “He’s just letting us know that he knows we use Barnford Park. The message isn’t for anyone except us.”

  Anthony looked at Michael. “Do we need to leave?”

  Michael in turn looked at Ernesto, who would be the only one to make that decision. Ernesto, defiant, shook his head. “No one leaves.”

  “It’s a matter of time,” Anthony argued. “Kurt, Minter, Dad… you know I’m right. Right?”

  Michael gave nothing away, Minter didn’t know what to think, and Kurt stood firmly with Ernesto. “If he knew where we were,” Kurt said, “he would have mentioned the mall. In fact, if he knew where we were, we’d be dead.”

  Ernesto nodded forcefully. “Exactly. Barnford Park was supposed to be a buffer, so it’s done its job. This changes nothing.”

  Anthony left the workstation, shaking his head as he went.

  “Can any of the mail you get there be linked to this mall?” Kurt asked.

  “No,” Ernesto said. “The locker is in Val’s name. There must have been something with my name on it for Amos to work it out, but nothing ever mentions the mall.”

  “Stacy’s letter mentioned the mall,” Minter said. “Not specifically this mall, but—”

  “Stacy is dead,” Ernesto interrupted, as detached as humanly possible. “She won’t be sending us any more letters.”

  Minter quietened down.

  “The only danger is Val’s car being tracked if someone is watching the locker,” Ernesto went on. “And she’s too smart to let that happen.”

  “There is one other danger,” Michael said, breaking his long silence.

  “What?” Ernesto asked.

  “Val’s car being intercepted. Val being intercepted.”

  “She wouldn’t talk,” Ernesto insisted.

  “Everyone talks,” Michael said. “When the questions are sharp enough, everyone talks.”

  Ernesto sat down on his computer chair. Michael was right.

  “When should she be back?” Kurt asked.

  “From now, two hours at most,” Michael said.

  “And what if she’s not?” Minter asked. “Do we leave?”

  There had been little sense of order, with everyone speaking to everyone, but the room now fell quiet in anticipation of Ernesto’s reply. This was his decision, and the newly raised possibility of Val being intercepted and interrogated made it far more difficult than it had been a few minutes ago.

  “We don’t have time to watch you think,” Minter pressed.

  Kurt nudged him to shut up.

  “Okay,” Ernesto said. “Five o’clock.”

  “What about five o’clock?” Minter asked.

  Ernesto rose from his chair, eyes to the floor, a shadow of the defiant man who had entered the workstation just minutes earlier.

  “Well?”

  Ernesto met Minter’s eyes. “If Val isn’t back by five, we leave the mall.”

  ~

  Kurt could hardly believe how quickly things had gone
downhill. The earlier excitement over SycaStars United and Kurt’s plans for the takedown had utterly disappeared as he now sat in the food court with everyone else, anxiously waiting for Val to return.

  An hour came and went with no sign of Val.

  After another hour, which was when she would typically have been back, Anthony insisted that they were wasting time and should have been packing to leave. Michael told him to be quiet. Anthony refused, at which point Ernesto stepped in.

  But Anthony was determined to be heard. “If you would just let me state my position…”

  “This isn’t a discussion,” Ernesto snapped. “You don’t get to state your position. You don’t get a position.”

  Anthony held up his hands. “I’m done. And you know what? I wish I’d never taken on your case. I wish I’d never even seen your face.” He walked away towards Home.

  Kurt, who had been trying to blank out the argument, couldn’t miss what Anthony said. He looked at Ernesto. “What case?”

  In the corner of his vision, Kurt saw Minter cover his eyes with his hand.

  “My father’s crash,” Ernesto said.

  Kurt remembered back to the start of his drive north with Minter, when Minter had mentioned Michael Richardson’s son representing someone in a lawsuit against Sycamore. Minter had been reluctant to give Kurt many more details and had outright refused to discuss who Anthony had represented. But the answers to both questions had just revealed themselves.

  Minter shuffled in his chair and put his arms on the sides as though he was about to stand up. Kurt turned to look at him. “Don’t you dare.”

  Ty and Lisa were still there in the food court. Harry and Joyce, too. None of them had said anything for a while, and none were about to say anything now. The look Kurt shot at Minter was like nothing they had ever seen from him.

  “What’s going on?” Ernesto asked.

  Kurt eventually took his eyes away from Minter, whose face was vacant. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked Ernesto.

  “Know what?” Ernesto said, giving Kurt his answer.