by Tim Floreen
I hadn’t expected him to have such strong tattoo-related feelings. “Maybe,” I mumbled.
He was studying the image I’d drawn a few days ago, the one dedicated to Tor, with the knife cutting a straight bleeding line across the page. He didn’t ask me to explain it, but for some reason I felt like I should.
“ ‘Guys are straight lines,’ ” I said. “It’s just something Tor likes to say.”
Admittedly, that didn’t explain much. It was a good thing my Tattoo Atlas was so weird and cryptic, because I had other drawings involving Tor in there. Everyone knew he and I were good friends, though. I didn’t think the images would make Franklin suspect the whole sick truth.
“I like these pictures,” he said. “They’re strange, but in a good way. You’re a good drawer.”
“So are you. I got those pictures you sent. That was you, wasn’t it?”
Franklin nodded. “Yep.”
“Weren’t you afraid I might figure out who sent them and say something?”
“Nobody would be able to prove it was me. I covered my tracks. Anyway, at this point, what have I got to lose?”
He flipped through a few more pages.
“Why me, Franklin?” I asked. “What did you like about me back in middle school?”
He stopped turning pages and thought about it. “Well, for one thing, you’re incredibly cute. Take your lips, for example. I used to stare at your picture in the yearbook all the time and just imagine what it would be like to kiss you. I thought your lips looked like they’d be really soft.” He slanted a grin at me. “I was right about that, by the way. And then your ears—”
“Okay, Franklin,” I said, my face sizzling. “I get the picture.”
“Plus there was the whole art thing. I thought it was cool you were into art and I was too. And the way you always walked around with paint smears all over your skin and clothes and didn’t even care. And the way you’d always look at everything so hard, like you were trying to memorize it for a painting. And then . . . like I said before, I thought you might secretly be more like me than you let on. I remember there was this one time in art class near the beginning of sophomore year . . .” He must’ve noticed my confusion, because he added, “It’s okay if you don’t remember I was there. It was a big class. I kept my head down.”
“My brother died a few weeks after school started that year,” I said, “so that whole period’s pretty much a blur.”
“Yeah, I think you’d just come back to class a few days before. Mr. Hampstead gave us this assignment to paint what joy looked like to us. You raised your hand and asked if you could paint something else. I figured it probably had something to do with your brother—you still looked pretty wrung out—but Mr. Hampstead got all red-faced, like he always did when he thought somebody was trying to undermine his authority, and he said, ‘No, you have to paint joy, that’s the assignment.’
“You did this still life with flowers in a vase, and it was the best painting in class, as usual. Mr. Hampstead even held it up in front of everybody and talked about how good it was. But what I noticed and he didn’t, and I don’t think anybody else in class saw either, was the way you had all the stems in the vase curving and twisting around each other so they spelled out the words ‘SCREW YOU,’ all in capital letters.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I wondered if anyone would spot that.”
“I did. And I thought, He’s angry, just like I am.” He stopped talking and cut me a look, like maybe he was worried I wouldn’t like him comparing the two of us that way. “But mostly your lips—that was what really did it for me.”
A little heat wafted across my cheeks again.
“I mean,” he said, “it’s true you were never all that nice to me, but when was the last time anybody fell for someone for being nice?”
My brain jumped straight to Tor, and I blinked and fidgeted with my scarf and hurried to change the subject. “How come I never noticed any of your work in art class? You’re really good.”
He laughed. “I half-assed all the assignments. For the one about joy, I covered the canvas in rotting food waste from the cafeteria Dumpster.”
Franklin turned past the picture I’d made for Pete, past the aimless lines I’d drawn tonight, past the blank pages after that, all the way to the end of the book, where I’d done one more drawing on the very last page. I’d made a bunch of images dedicated to my brother, but this one was my favorite, which was why I’d redrawn it here. The second I saw it now, the ache the music was still pulling out of me strengthened. The piano playing had become stronger now, still beautiful, but more insistent.
The drawing showed Ethan having his head blown open. Except in my rendition, the moment was beautiful. This picture was different from the others in the Tattoo Atlas. Less bloody and violent, ironically enough. And in a weird way, happier. I’d drawn my brother’s face wearing that big, open smile of his, like he felt no pain, and out of the blown-open top of his head streamed a flock of birds.
“That’s Ethan,” I said.
“I know. He was nice to me. When I was little, whenever he saw me out on Boreal Street, he’d say, ‘Hey, Frankie,’ and throw me a piece of Dubble Bubble. I felt sad when he died. I really did, even though you probably don’t believe me after the stuff I said about him a couple days ago.”
I touched the paper, stiff and crinkly from the watercolors. “I met the man who saw him get killed today.”
“Today?” Franklin’s voice sloped up a little in surprise.
“Just a few hours ago. One of the other soldiers in Ethan’s unit. He said the guy who shot Ethan wasn’t a guy at all. He was a kid. Ten or eleven years old. Probably scared out of his head. I’d never known that until tonight. And after I just told you at the lab I wished Ethan had pulled the trigger first or I’d done it myself. Instant karma, I guess.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Franklin said. “You didn’t actually kill anybody.”
But would I have? I wanted to ask him. If I’d been in that room in Afghanistan with my finger on the trigger, would I have been someone like you, Franklin Kettle—at least after you got the nanodrones stuck in your head—or someone like my brother? I didn’t even know for sure which answer to that question I would’ve preferred.
Franklin traced one of the ribbons streaming out of Ethan’s head along with the birds. “What’s that?” I’d written strings of words on each of the ribbons in tiny block letters. He turned the book sideways so he could read them.
“My brother’s favorite poem. Emily Dickinson. ‘The Brain Is Wider Than the Sky.’ I think he liked it because he was into brains, just like our mom. He wanted to get a degree in psychology after he finished his tour of duty. Be a counselor. Help people.”
Franklin squinted through his glasses. “It’s too dark. I can’t . . .”
“ ‘The brain is wider than the sky,’ ” I recited from memory, “ ‘For, put them side by side, The one the other will include, With ease, and you beside.’ ”
When I looked up, small flakes of snow had started wandering down to earth. As I’d recited, the ache in my chest had grown so strong it almost felt like real physical pain. The music playing into my ear and the lines of poetry I’d spoken aloud both seemed to express the exact same thing, a feeling I couldn’t quite identify, except that it contained an undercurrent of incredible sadness. They all seemed to join together, the music, and the mournful wind chimes I could still hear in my other ear, and the image of my brother’s face, and the poem he’d loved, and even the nighttime snow, they all reached through my rib cage, not like threads, but like thorny tendrils.
The song finally ended. The piano sounded the same note six times, like an alarm, and went silent. Franklin didn’t say anything. He was watching the snow. I couldn’t read his expression. He seemed to have fallen into a trance. According to my watch, it had just passed midnight.
I wondered if I should tell him what I’d learned tonight about the nanodrones. How killing Pete probabl
y hadn’t been his fault. I realized I hadn’t even fully registered that fact myself yet. I’d spent so much time hating Ethan’s murderer and hating Pete’s, and now, in the space of just a few hours, I’d found out I had to completely change my conception of both of them.
But even so, I shouldn’t tell Franklin. Not yet. If he found out the true story, he’d most likely want to make it public and clear his name. Not most likely—of course he would, and rightfully so. If the truth got out, it would ruin Mom, and however I might be feeling about her right now, I couldn’t let that happen. For better or for worse, she was the only family I had left.
At some point, though, Franklin had to find out the truth.
I lifted the Tattoo Atlas out of his hands and cleared my throat.
“You need to go back, Franklin. Someone’s going to find out you’re gone.”
“I’ll be fine, Rem.”
“You are going back, aren’t you? You have all that circuitry in your head now. What if there are complications? You might even die.”
He shrugged. Maybe that didn’t make much difference to him. After all, he’d planned on killing himself only a year ago.
“Please go back. I don’t want something bad to happen to you.”
He didn’t speak, just nodded slowly, like he was weighing what I’d said, trying to decide if I meant it. He seemed different now, more closed off. His lips had pressed into a thin, flat line. The life had faded from his eyes. Maybe it was my mention of returning to the lab.
“I have an idea,” I said. “How about I drive you back and drop you off nearby so you can sneak in again? And then I won’t tell anyone what happened. It’ll be our secret.”
I watched him while he considered my proposition.
“Okay.”
I let out a silent breath. “Okay. Good. I’ll take you back then. I just need to run inside to get my car keys. It’ll be safer if I don’t take you into the house. Don’t go anywhere, all right?”
He nodded. The lenses of his glasses reflected the lazy movement of the snow. I jumped up and trotted down the path to the house. Without a sound, I opened the back door. I started to grab my keys from the junk bowl on the kitchen counter, but then I stopped when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror hanging above. Had I really just offered to give a ride to a murderer who’d moments earlier confessed he’d had some kind of weird obsession with me for years?
Yes, I had. And not only that, I didn’t even feel afraid. I’d doubted before as much as anyone, but now I could see it: Mom’s technology had changed Franklin. It had made him a killer, and then it had made him . . . someone else. “I’m trying to be a good person,” he’d said. I’d told him I believed him. And I really did.
My fingers closed around the keys. I slipped back outside and ran through the falling snow to the gazebo.
The blanket lay neatly folded on the bench. My Tattoo Atlas rested on top. Glancing around the yard, I saw Franklin had even smoothed over his footprints, so I couldn’t tell which way he’d gone. I might’ve thought I’d imagined his whole visit, except for four large words traced in the dusting of snow on the floor of the gazebo: DON’T WORRY GOING BACK.
I lay on my bed staring at the shadowy ceiling for a long time after that, my stomach twisting and contorting while I wondered if Franklin would really return to the Mother Ship. And what if he didn’t? What if someone found him wandering the streets of Duluth? If the news got out that Franklin had escaped just like everybody had feared he would, people would make assumptions. They’d think the capsule hadn’t worked. They’d think he’d intended to do something horrible. Mom’s project would get shut down. Maybe she deserved that, considering she’d built the project on lies. But she’d probably also have to take the capsule out of Franklin’s skull. He’d go back to the way he’d been before all this started—not a murderer, perhaps, but also not whoever he was now.
Franklin had said he’d return to the lab, though. He probably hadn’t stuck around in the backyard because he’d feared I’d get Mom or call the cops the second I stepped inside, which was understandable. If I hadn’t learned what I had about him earlier tonight, I probably would’ve done just that.
After a couple hours of agonizing, I grabbed my phone and called Callie.
“This better be fucking important, Rem,” she said, her voice thick with sleep.
I couldn’t get myself to say anything, though. I always told Callie everything, but this felt too huge even to share with her.
“Spit it out,” she said. “If this is about how I blew your stupid little secret and now Tor knows I know how the two of you liked to get steamy in the steam tunnels, I already said, I’m sorry but I’m not sorry. It’s about time he—”
She broke off.
“What is it, Callie?”
“Nothing. I thought I heard a noise. Look, can we talk about this tomorrow? I mean it, Rem, enough with the middle-of-the-night phone calls. I want to be supportive and there for you and all that shit, but I also need my fucking sleep.”
I rolled over in bed, the phone tight to my ear. She was right. I should just let her sleep. If I spilled the truth about Franklin’s escape, how would she react? Would she understand if I tried to explain why I hadn’t turned him in? Would she insist I go to the police now and tell them what had happened? Would she turn around and do it herself? And how much of the truth should I tell her anyway? Should I mention the part I’d learned Mom had played in Pete’s murder? I couldn’t explain the rest of it—how my feelings about Franklin could’ve changed so fast in such a short period of time—without divulging that too, could I?
“Right,” I said. “Sorry. Go back to sleep, Callie. We can talk tomorrow.”
A couple more hours passed before I finally sank into sleep myself. Right away, a dream pounced on me and swallowed me up. Except this dream felt different from my usual ones. I found myself back in the gazebo sitting next to Franklin. He had the iPod in his hand, and we each had an earbud in one ear, and that beautiful, heartbreaking thread of piano music was winding its way into my chest.
Then, as we listened, the lights went up, and we weren’t in the gazebo anymore. We were sitting at the back of Ms. Utter’s classroom from last year. I glanced at Franklin. He’d put on his Son of War mask. In one hand he still held the iPod, and in the other he gripped the black Beretta. Now the dream started to feel more like the ones I usually had.
Except with a few differences. Normally in these dreams, I was a bystander watching the action just like everybody else, but this time, when Franklin stood, I stood too, because I didn’t want to dislodge my earbud, which for some reason seemed important. Also, all the desks in front of us faced backward instead of forward, so the moment I got up, the eyes of the whole class fastened on me. Tor, still enraged that I’d told Callie about the steam tunnels, watched me with the same dangerous look in his eyes I’d glimpsed that morning. Tears covered Lydia’s freckly cheeks: in my dream she’d found out the truth about me and Tor. Callie sat back in her chair with her arms folded across her chest and her long bare legs crossed, regarding me with her trademark disapproving glower. The whole class looked more like a grumpy audience at one of the drama department’s horrible plays than a bunch of witnesses at a school shooting.
Apart from that, the dream continued the same way it usually did, pretty much just like the Big Bang had really happened. Franklin raising his gun and commanding Pete to say, “I didn’t know Napoleon was that small.” Pete’s sweet face going slack. That sad dripping sound as he peed himself.
Then Pete changed into Ethan. That had happened before too. In my dreams those two deaths got mixed up all the time. Ethan wore dusty fatigues and held a rifle I knew he wouldn’t fire. Franklin’s finger massaged the Beretta’s trigger, preparing to pull.
But then Ethan changed again, this time into a ten-year-old Afghan boy. Thick black hair. Eyes wide with fright. The rifle still in his hands.
Franklin turned to me and held out the gun. The mirrored g
oggles of his mask reflected my face back to me. I closed my hand around the handle and turned to the front of the classroom. The rest of the class scowled at me in silence. In my ear, the beautiful piano music unspooled.
As usual, the gun went BANG just as I woke up.
I didn’t fall back to sleep until around five, which probably explains why I slept through my alarm that morning. When my eyes finally opened, my bedside clock said 8:47—twenty-two minutes after the start of first period. I’d had my phone’s ringer turned off, but I’d gotten about a dozen calls from Lydia. Hopefully she and Callie and Tor had given up on me and taken their own cars in time to make class. I slapped on some deodorant, wrestled a paint-covered but otherwise clean sweatshirt over my head, and bolted to the garage.
I called Mom on the way to school. I still didn’t feel much like talking to her after last night, but I needed to know for sure if Franklin had made it back to the lab, and if she’d found out what he’d done.
She picked up right away.
“Rem.”
She sounded tense. My insides lurched.
“I’m glad you called. I didn’t like the way we left things.”
It took a second for my heart to find its rhythm again. Our fight. That had her tense. Not Franklin’s escape. I pulled the car over to the side of the road so I could concentrate.
“Sometimes,” Mom said, “life presents us with situations where there are no good options and no right choices. Your brother’s death was one of those. Pete’s death was another.”
“We don’t live in a perfect world,” I muttered.
“That’s right. Believe me when I tell you it eats me up inside to think Pete might’ve died at least in part because of us. But just imagine how much more violence our technology might prevent. And whatever we did to Franklin before, I really think we’re helping him now. It’s still too early to tell for sure, but I really do.”
A few snowflakes drifted past the windshield. They reminded me of the gentle snow that had fallen last night while Franklin and I sat in the gazebo. “I think you’re helping him too,” I said.
