by Tim Floreen
Maybe she was right. What she’d done to Franklin a year ago had been a mistake. And if she hadn’t kept it a secret, that weird, dreamlike moment I’d shared with Franklin in the backyard—and that first kiss I still had no idea how to feel about—would never have happened. For some reason the thought of that made me sad.
“Have you seen him yet today?” I asked. “How does he seem?”
“Tired, which is understandable, considering what a strain these last few days must’ve put on him.”
I exhaled. So he’d made it back. And it didn’t sound like she suspected a thing.
“Are we okay, Rem?” Mom said.
I leaned the side of my head against the cold window. “I don’t know. How are we supposed to just be okay after all those lies you told? And Mom, Franklin needs to hear the real story. That the shooting most likely wasn’t his fault. That all this guilt he’s feeling right now probably isn’t his to feel.”
“When the time is right,” Mom said, “I’ll tell him. I promise.”
I almost asked her when that would be, but I stopped myself. Maybe because I knew she had no way of knowing, or maybe because I feared she’d just lie again.
“Rem, aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“I overslept. Don’t worry, I’m on my way now. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”
I hung up and took a few more breaths while I eased the Saab back onto the road. I kept telling myself everything had turned out okay. He’d gone back, just like he’d said he would. And hopefully he had as much computer and prison-escaping prowess as he’d claimed, and no one would ever find out what he’d done. My heart had just about slowed to normal speed by the time I rounded a bend in the road and Duluth Central appeared.
I almost ran into the car in front of me. It had come to a dead stop. Up ahead a crowd of vehicles clogged the roadway. Blocking their path, parked diagonally across the street, sat a police cruiser with flashing lights. More cop cars, many more, had pulled up behind it.
My heart went back to its dead sprint while I tried to make sense of the scene. A police officer in a big navy coat and furry hat stood in front of the cruiser, waving traffic away from the school. Closer to the building a couple ambulances stood among the idling police cars, and hordes of students milled around on the school’s front yard. My hands clutched the steering wheel so tight the bones popped. What really chilled me was how familiar the scene looked. It felt like I’d just jumped back in time one year.
A honk from behind shoved me awake again. The cars in front of me had turned onto a side street, redirected by the cop. He waved me forward. I stopped next to him and cranked down the Saab’s window. “What happened?”
“There’s been an incident at the school,” the officer said. “Class is canceled today, buddy.”
“What kind of incident? Was anybody hurt?”
“We’re still investigating. Right now, I just need you to turn here and proceed home.”
The tightness of his mouth underneath his frosty mustache told me he knew more than he was saying and it had him rattled. I cranked the window back up and followed the other cars down the side street. As soon as I noticed a parking space, I swerved into it, jumped out, and pelted back toward Duluth Central. Did all this have something to do with Franklin? The question played on a loop in my head.
The police still hadn’t managed to clear the mob of students and teachers lingering in front of the school. I dodged past the cop redirecting traffic and plunged into the crowd. As I swam through the throng, I grabbed a few kids and asked what was happening, but no one seemed to know a thing. I knocked into a few others and had to shout apologies over my shoulder.
I’d almost made it to the school’s main entrance when Lydia and Tor appeared in front of me, his arm around her shoulders. I seized Lydia with both hands. She looked up from her phone, and I got another jolt when I saw the tears streaking her cheeks.
“What is it?” I panted. “What the hell’s going on?”
Her face crumpled as she clutched me back. “It’s Callie,” she choked. “Rem, she’s dead.”
My breath stopped. I twisted out of her grip and stumbled back a few steps, jostling someone behind me but not caring. The hot press of bodies around me had become unimportant, insubstantial, less solid than the words Lydia had just spoken. I threw Tor a questioning glance. That can’t be true, can it?
He looked down at the trampled snow and nodded.
“How?”
Tor motioned for us to step farther away from the other students. In a low voice he answered, “Somebody shot her.” Now his face contorted too. “Last night, in the cafeteria.”
The world around me seemed less real every second. Sort of pale, like an overexposed photo. The noise of the crowd had become tinny and distant. “What?”
“The police aren’t telling people yet.” Lydia swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I only know because I texted Billy.”
Lydia had dated Billy Wakahisa for a couple months during sophomore year. He’d since graduated from high school and joined the police.
“He must be wrong,” I whispered.
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Her face buckling some more, she added, “Where have you been, Rem? You weren’t at your car this morning, you weren’t answering your phone. I was scared something happened to you, too.”
I turned toward the wall and pressed my palms against the rough, solid brick of the school, half-expecting my hands to go right through, half-expecting the whole building to come crashing down, half-expecting all this to reveal itself as nothing more than another of my nightmares. Because Callie couldn’t be dead.
Lydia touched my shoulder. “Rem?”
“You said the cafeteria?” I asked Tor.
“Yes, but—”
I took off running before he could finish.
I dashed along the front of the school, my breath tearing from my mouth in ragged shreds that vanished as soon as they appeared. I hoped the police wouldn’t see me as I hooked around the corner. From there I sprinted to the back of the building, my boots mushing through slushy snow, and clattered down the steps that led to the basement. I’d never tried opening the padlock myself, but I yanked on it the same way I’d seen Tor do. It took me five tries before the lock gave.
I pounded down the second stairwell. The heat of the steam tunnels swallowed me up. I threaded my way through them, jerking lightbulb cords as I went.
Once, a short while after Tor and I had first started coming down here, I’d suggested we explore a little. We’d never done anything like that since—Tor always wanted to get out of the tunnels as soon as possible once we’d done our business—but that day we’d crept up a random staircase and poked our heads through a door, only to find ourselves in an out-of-the-way corner of the school kitchen. I felt pretty certain I could find that same staircase now.
I rounded a corner, and the rickety wood stairs I remembered were standing in front of me. They squeaked and complained as I ascended to the basement level. After climbing a second flight of steps from there, I fumbled with a lock in the darkness and pressed a door open. Just as I’d hoped, the shadowy kitchen appeared empty. The police had evacuated the cafeteria staff along with everyone else.
That same question continued to repeat itself over and over in my mind: did all this have something to do with Franklin? But now other questions had joined it. Callie couldn’t really be dead, could she? Had Franklin done it? Had I been all wrong about him? Jesus Christ, had I allowed something horrible to happen when I’d let him run off last night?
The sound of cops milling around and talking came from the cafeteria. A porthole window in one of the big swinging kitchen doors offered a place to look out without being seen. I drew close and peered through the dusty glass.
My eyes landed on Billy Wakahisa first. He stood only a few feet away. I flinched, afraid he might notice me, but he didn’t. His face had gone white, sweat beaded his forehead, and his e
yes stayed stuck on something in the center of the room. My own eyes started to burn and blur as I followed his gaze.
Callie was staring back at me. On the same spot where she’d shouted, “Kettlebot shot me!” in the middle of the Halloween dance junior year, a round lunch table lay on its side with her body slumped against it, two holes punched through her chest, her long legs splayed out in front of her. She had on the T-shirt and sweatpants she always wore to bed and, incongruously, her cork-heeled wedges. Her precarious mass of hair had collapsed. Black tendrils snaked down over her shoulders.
My body sagged toward the door, and I rolled to the side to keep from tumbling into the cafeteria. My back landed against the wall. I slid down to the floor, my knees up by my chest, my head tipped forward, my fingers clawing through my hair. My stomach writhed. I thought I might throw up any second. When I closed my eyes, I could still see Callie staring at me.
If I’d trusted Callie last night when I called her, if I’d kept her on the line just a little bit longer, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe she would’ve stayed awake and her killer wouldn’t have surprised her. Or maybe I would’ve glanced across the street at her house and seen something. She’d said she’d heard a noise. It must’ve been him, right there in her house at the very same time I was talking to her.
The person who killed her.
Franklin Kettle.
Because of course Franklin had done it. What other explanation made sense? The capsule hadn’t worked. He’d faked his transformation. Maybe the nanodrones had left his brain’s empathy centers permanently impaired. And last night he’d come to my house—Franklin, a mentally imbalanced killer, a subject of an experimental brain procedure—and I’d done nothing. What a fucking fool I’d been. I couldn’t keep his escape secret any longer.
Except I still couldn’t go to the police. Once people found out Franklin had flown the coop and no one at Mom’s lab had realized, it would finish her career. And her other secret, the one about the nanodrones, that might have to come out too. People would argue, probably rightly, that her negligence had resulted in two deaths. It might even mean she’d have to do time in prison. Maybe I didn’t trust her right now, but she was still my mother, and I couldn’t do that to her. I needed to tell her about last night. She’d figure out how to handle things from there. And at least I’d still know the truth and could make sure it came out eventually. When the time was right, like she’d said. That was what I told myself.
In the meantime, I couldn’t risk telling Mom by phone. I had to do it in person. I had to go to the lab. Now.
My phone buzzed in my coat. Lydia had texted. Where did you run off to? Are you okay? We’re worried about you!
I shoved my phone back into my pocket. I’d talk to her and Tor later.
In the cafeteria, the sounds of police activity had grown louder. I slid myself up the wall and lurched back to the narrow door in the corner that led down to the basement and the steam tunnels. After locking the door behind me and descending the two long flights of stairs, I stumbled through the tunnels in a daze and climbed back into the cold morning.
Again my phone vibrated, this time with a call from Mom. She’d probably heard about Callie’s death and wanted to check on me. Again I ignored it. I’d see her soon enough.
By the time I reached my car, the urge to puke had grown stronger than ever, and I had to sit behind the steering wheel and do my stupid breathing exercises for a while just to fight it back. I kept thinking of how Franklin had gone moody and quiet last night before I’d left him.
And then I’d just let him go.
As I drove north along the shore, the frozen lake appeared and disappeared behind the bare trees. Callie had talked in her speech about how much her friendship with Pete and the rest of us had meant to her, and about how the five of us had always taken care of each other. “I just wish it had been enough to stop Pete from getting killed,” she’d said.
It hadn’t been enough to save her, either.
Over and over, Callie’s death ricocheted through me. I’d wondered when the next calamity would arrive, and now it had. Another death. More fuel for my nightmares.
My best friend, gone.
I swerved into the lab parking lot, skidded into a space, and threw open the door just in time to spew vomit all over the pavement. It sprawled across the icy blacktop like an abstract painting. When I finished, I tipped my head against the doorframe and wiped the slobber off my mouth with my sleeve. I’d make it up to Callie, at least as much as I could. Somehow, I’d bring her killer to justice.
In my coat my phone buzzed one more time. I yanked it out and froze. The screen displayed a number I recognized. I’d seen it yesterday, and the day before that, when I’d received those digital paintings of my face.
I pulled my car door shut and put my phone to my ear.
“Rem?” Franklin said. “It’s me.”
“I know you did it,” I snarled. “Callie was my best friend, and you killed her. You probably went straight from my house to hers, you fucking psycho. And then you put a gun on her and you got her to school somehow and you shot her.”
“No, I didn’t, Rem,” Franklin said, his voice low but vehement. “I can see what it looks like, but I swear I didn’t do it.”
“Who did then?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Listen to me,” he said. “After I left your house I ran straight back to the lab.”
“Why didn’t you wait for me to drive you?”
“I wanted to, but I didn’t know if I could trust you. I thought you might try to turn me in. But you didn’t. I know that now. Thank you, Rem.”
I leaned my forehead against the cold metal steering wheel and squeezed my eyes shut. After all that puking, my stomach felt like a tight fist. The nausea still hadn’t left me. “I called my mom this morning after she got to the lab, and she didn’t sound like she suspected anything happened during the night, but that was before she heard about the shooting. She must know now. Does she think you did it?”
“I’m not sure. She’s the one who told me about it, just a few minutes ago. She asked if anything unusual happened last night. So maybe she had a suspicion. As soon as I heard, I knew what you were probably thinking. I didn’t want Callie to die, though, Rem. You have to believe me.”
I rocked my head from side to side on the wheel and commanded my voice to stay firm. “You’re in your room right now?”
“Yes.”
“How are you speaking to me? You’re using the iPod and the Wi-Fi network?”
“That’s right. I have to be careful so they don’t see me talking on the camera. I don’t want to make them suspicious.”
I lifted my head and peered at the huge glass structure rising out of the snow, towering above the trees. I imagined Franklin somewhere deep inside, curled up on his bed in a room without windows.
Through the phone came a tapping sound. “What’s that noise?”
“One of my mice is crawling on my shoulder. Your mom’s been letting me keep them in the room with me.”
For a while I stared at the steering wheel and listened to the sound of Franklin’s mouse nosing around him. “I have to tell, Franklin. You understand that, right?”
“Please don’t. I know you don’t really think I’m a psycho anymore. Something’s been keeping you from letting your mom know I escaped up until now.”
“I just—”
“Last night when I came to see you, did I seem like somebody about to commit murder?”
“How should I know, Franklin?”
“If I’d been planning to kill Callie,” he persisted, “why would I go to your house first anyway? I could’ve just snuck out, killed her, and snuck back, and nobody would’ve known I’d ever left. But instead I went to see you, the son of the scientist in charge of the lab where I was supposed to be locked up. How does that make any sense?”
“A lot of what you do
doesn’t make sense, Franklin. You told me you broke out of there so you could play me a song on your iPod. That doesn’t make sense.”
But he had a point. And I knew one thing he didn’t: the nanodrones had made Franklin kill Pete, or at least it seemed like they had, and Mom had taken them out of his head. Another argument in his favor. Plus, I’d spoken to Callie two hours after Franklin had left, which meant he couldn’t have gone straight from my house to hers, like I’d just accused him of doing. Why would he wait all that time, when every minute he stayed away from the lab increased the likelihood he’d be discovered? Hope went through me like a tiny pinprick of light. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe I hadn’t let something horrible happen after all.
“I didn’t kill Callie,” he repeated.
“Even if that’s true, I should tell. If you didn’t do it, you’ve got nothing to worry about. The police will get to the bottom of it.”
“That’s not how it works. You know that. If they find out I escaped from the lab last night, their investigation will stop right there.”
I pressed my forehead against the wheel again. “Look, I understand why you’re scared, but you’re putting me in an impossible position.”
“How about this then: just wait a few days. Give the police some time to find out who really did it, or at least turn up some clues. Can you do that?”
“I don’t know, Franklin.”
He breathed into the iPod’s microphone for a while. His mouse continued to scratch and frisk in the background. “If you tell,” he said, “people will think I did it. If people think I did it, they’ll assume the capsule isn’t working and have it taken out. And I don’t want that to happen, Rem. I want the capsule to stay in my head. It’s working. I know it is. I feel different.”
“Different how?”
He let out a brief gasp of laughter. “Horrible, mostly. I felt horrible before the operation too, though. Back then I felt horrible and angry. I’d spend all my time thinking about all the things other people had done to me and how unfair life was. Now I feel horrible thinking about the things I’ve done. But I also have these moments when I feel really happy. I never used to feel like that, not even when I played Son of War. Last night in your backyard, when you listened to that song and showed me those pictures you drew, that made me feel happier than I’ve ever felt probably. Thinking about it now makes me feel happy too. And it doesn’t even matter that you don’t feel the same way about me that I do about you. I know you don’t, I’m not stupid, but it doesn’t even matter.”
