Sunlight 24

by Merritt Graves

  The pain made me furious. I could barely see Chris through a smear of blood, but I lunged anyway, and would’ve had him if it weren’t for the tangle of intervening limbs that materialized around me, yanking me back. “Jesus Christ, asshole! I’m like your fucking brother!” screamed Chris who, like me, was being held by four or five teammates.

  “You think you can just get up in my face and get away with it, shithead? We can all just laugh it off, huh?” I was embarrassed that I’d lost control, but I was seething and couldn’t help myself from doubling down. “Listen! Just listen to yourself! Train harder, come in at four in the morning and do sprints,” I mocked. “How about we come in at three? How about we don’t sleep at all, and see how that goes? We’re not the machines, you dumb fuck. They are!”

  “God, Dorian, calm the hell down,” someone yelled.

  “Calm the hell down? How can I calm down when captain here’s telling us to sharpen our knives for the gunfight? It’s fucked. You’re the one who’s crazy, staying calm after hearing that shit!”

  Chris just looked at me, shocked, as he was gradually pulled away.

  “Am I the only one who gets what’s going on?” I asked, trying once more to break free. “Michael, you get it. I know you get it. Why don’t you help me out instead of just gawking, huh?”

  He glanced at me and then turned away, reaching for his towel.

  “Sure, whatever. Do that then.” I swiveled my head around to see who was holding me. “Fucking let go, Nathan. Does it take four of you to hold me? Huh? Little un-Revised me?”

  “Shut your mouth, Dorian, before you say something you’ll really regret.”

  “That’ll take something.”

  Coach Benson’s hunched figure emerged through the locker room door and I shouted, “Coach, so happy you could join us. We were just having a little team meeting!”

  He looked at me with doe eyes, his face a ghost-like weave of aged skin in an almost perpetual expression of alarm. All of the good teachers and coaches had long since departed to private schools like Lawrence, and we were left with bumbling, tenured dregs like him.

  He didn’t say anything, just panned around for his assistant who was nowhere to be found.

  “Nope. It’s just you, Coach. You’re going to have to handle this all by yourself.”

  He shifted his gaze, as if the needed words were hiding in the lockers or the shower stalls. “Who . . . who started this?”

  I heard mumbles in which I was implicated as the instigator. Then loud-mouth Rex Green’s voice sliced through the others. “Chris got angry at Dorian, and they started punching each other.”

  There was a small uproar at this, which seemed to confuse Coach Benson even more. “Okay, both of you, then—both of you in my office. Now!” he said, giving it his best attempt to sound worked up.

  Chris scowled and the two people behind him let go of his arms.

  “Can I let you go now, too?” Nathan muttered in my ear.

  “I don’t know, can you?”

  He released his grip and shoved me away. “Just take it easy, man. I don’t even know what you’re so mad about.”

  I turned around and stared at him. “Yeah, that’s kinda the problem.”

  Chapter 10

  I told Mom and Dad I wasn’t feeling well and skipped dinner. I probably shouldn’t have because they were already worried, but I didn’t have the stamina for their nightly interrogation. They’d lay it on pretty thick because I think on some level they felt bad about not being able to afford Revision—the second mortgage they took out was barely enough to redo the basement and upstairs bathroom after a pipe broke—and they needed the reassurance from us, in a hundred different ways, that we were doing okay without it.

  For the most part I just gave it to them because I knew they were doing their best. Mom and Dad had jobs, after all; they were just silly government ones, excuses for pocket money to appear in your bank account so you kept buying stuff, but nowhere near Revision kind of money. Mom, a lady who still writes her shopping list down on a notepad, is a “technical” assistant for the Department of Health and Human Services. And Dad—a systems analyst—monitors the backup to the backup public infrastructure diagnostic system.

  And like others in their position, they parroted the company line: Revision was coming down exponentially in cost, so pretty soon we’d be able to afford it. And they were right, it was. But the problem was that it was getting exponentially better, too, so by the time we got the old stuff, the new stuff would’ve completely superannuated it.

  Immediately after I stepped into my room, I jerked back, seeing something bent over on the floor. Given recent history, I instinctively thought it was an intruder, but a moment passed and the outline of Mr. Jefferson’s wiry, angular arms firmed in the dimness, followed by the blue flash of halogen on its plating.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” I snapped.

  His head turned slowly, rotating one hundred thirty degrees without the slightest movement in his shoulders. His oversized LED eyes looked even larger than usual when they met mine, as if in an attempt to indicate that he was just as startled as I was. “Laundry procurement. Mother’s doing a hot water cycle and asked that I gather all items on the chromaticity diagram with values X,Y,Z = 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 with a .35 variance or lower.”

  “She asked that?”

  “She asked for whites. The additional specificity was mine.”

  My muscles unclenched slightly. “But when did I say you could come in here? I actually specifically remember telling you not to.”

  Mr. Jefferson nodded. “On August 9th 2031 8:32 p.m. you said, ‘Don’t mess with my stuff, you nosy bastard.’ And on August 17th 1:48 p.m. you said, ‘If I ever catch you screwing with my things again, I’ll make you watch Jingle All the Way on repeat for the next six weeks.’”

  GT Automation had included a lot of random preferences unique to each unit as a way to make them seem quirkier, and the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger/Sinbad comedy Jingle All the Way was what had been chosen to torment Mr. Jefferson. I thought this kind of pre-programmed novelty was hokey, but apparently people ate it up.

  “Yet here you are.”

  “Defining screw in the context you used, one: To waste time in foolish frivolity. Two: to ruin through bungling or stupidity. Three: To botch something; blunder. And then mess as a verb defined as, one: to make untidy or dirty. Two: to make a jumble or muddle of affairs, responsibilities, etc. All of those are the opposite of what I’m doing.”

  “You’re missing one,” I said, pulling up another list on my film, and clearing my throat. “To intervene officiously. Officiously defined as objectionably aggressive in offering one’s unrequested and unwanted services, help, or advice; meddlesome.”

  “That was a tertiary definition I deemed inapplicable since I was neither messing nor screwing, but collecting, on instructions from Mother. And even if that definition did apply, I assigned it a low weight considering I interpreted ‘stuff’ as things with informational qualities. This would be journals, papers, computer files, etc. This, however, is just your dirty clothing.”

  “You interpreted that?”

  “Yes, because clothes are only cotton and polyfibers.”

  “Listen, I’m not going to fucking debate you. Stay out of my room. Don’t collect anything. Don’t snoop. Don’t even fucking come near it. Is that specific enough for you?”

  “Yes, Dorian. But, void of judgment, narrow interpretations have been shown to correlate with wide errors.”

  “I don’t care. Just stay the fuck out.”

  “Are you going to make me watch Jingle All the Way on repeat?”

  “In a heartbeat, if I catch you in here again,” I said, glaring as Mr. Jefferson walked by me. “And it’s every bit as bad as you think it is.”

  A knock sounded on my door a few moments after I’d sat down and pulled up the spreadsheet of the different Revisions I wanted on my workstation, along with their accompanying costs, advantag
es, and risks. We still couldn’t afford anything worth doing, but I wanted to be ready when we could.

  “Dorian, Michael’s here to see you. Do you want me to tell him you’re not feeling well?”

  “No, it’s okay. You can send him in,” I said, minimizing the window as her head poked through the doorway.

  “Are you sure? I can—”

  “It’s fine. And by the way, did you tell Mr. Jefferson it was okay to come in here?”

  “I just said to get the laundry.” She stopped and, by the look on her face, I could see her remembering my request from a few weeks ago. “Sorry . . .”

  “It’s okay. Just please, please try to keep it out next time.”

  Mom winced apologetically as she stepped back into the hallway. A few moments later I heard voices, then Michael appeared by the door.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” he said, making eye contact for only a second before his gaze settled on the wall behind me.

  “I didn’t think you were still coming.”

  “Neither did I, but my dad’s got this new self-assembly sports car he wants us to build together, which’s weird because he doesn’t even like building things. Or sports cars. Or non-autonomous cars at all.” Michael made an embarrassed face halfway between a grimace and a smile. “He just likes telling people how we do all this cool stuff . . . and I just had to get out of there.”

  Michael would never admit he didn’t like his dad, actually going to great lengths to defend him, but Mr. Monroe was the kind of guy who optimized his own voice for ‘likeability’ and ‘trustworthiness,’ practicing with an app in the bathroom to get the timbre and pitch down to the exact right semitone. He was just as aimless as everyone else, but aimless with such fervor and alacrity that it stuck out.

  I think that’s actually the reason Michael liked me so much; I always had a larger plan.

  “Anyways, I think you’ve got it wrong, Dor. Chris isn’t the problem. I mean, he’s a little confused, but he’s going to figure it out. He’s just got to figure it out his own way.”

  “Dude, look around. There’s no time for that.”

  “You can’t speed up figuring out who you are,” Michael said emphatically. “And even if you could, you shouldn’t have punched him.

  “I know, I know. I’ve just been . . . I don’t know how to say it.” But I did know how, I just couldn’t. It’s not like I could tell him I hit Chris because he made me feel guilty about robbing the Moores and Van de Kamps. “I’ve been on edge. Anxious. All kinds of things. And when he got in my face, I just . . . I just . . . didn’t think, it just happened.”

  “Yeah . . . ,” he said sympathetically, fidgeting with the hemp bracelet on his arm. For the first time, I stopped to think how he must’ve felt when I lost it. How abandoned it must’ve made him feel to see his best friend melt down like that in front of everyone. From back when we were in grade school, my endurance, focus, and fast reaction times, along with my perpetually good grades, had earned me near-mythical status in his eyes. I’d always had the answers. He being the talented one and he being the one I called for help wasn’t how he thought it was supposed to work.

  “I shouldn’t be making excuses, though,” I said, knowing I needed to get back on track with Michael. “Because I am really sorry.”

  “You should tell Chris that. I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”

  “Oh, I bet he would.”

  There was another long pause. His eyes drifted off my face again ever so slightly, back toward the wall.

  “The one thing I’ll say, though, is that it wasn’t conscious. There was never a point where I was like, I’m going to punch Chris in the face.”

  “What happened to not making excuses?” he said.

  “Well . . .”

  “Then what’s your excuse for hanging out so much with Ethan? That’s definitely conscious.”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “But why?”

  “He’s your friend, too.”

  “He’s not the kind of friend you spend all your time with. All summer with.”

  “I don’t think you’re giving him enough credit.”

  Michael laughed bitterly. “Well, he definitely gets credit for turning you into more of an asshole than I ever thought possible. You come back, and on the first day of school you pick a fight with your best friend.”

  “You can’t pin that on Ethan.”

  “It’s just his vibe. He’s always looking to take the easy way out: stamps, cheating, what have you. That kind of stuff sneaks up on you. I get that you guys are upset, but . . .”

  Not wanting to get cornered, I shot back, “Would you rather hear the if you can dream it, you can do it line? Will that cheer you up, Mikey?”

  “No, because you wouldn’t mean it.”

  My expression soured. “You don’t say.”

  “Chris might be naïve, but at least he’s got the guts to keep going.”

  “You mean with that retro, all-American, good-guy, jock act? You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me.”

  Michael winced. “We both know he’s a lot more thoughtful than that.”

  “Do we?”

  “I think . . . I think sometimes you take someone’s flaw, and you build it up. And you fixate on it, especially when it fits with how you want to see things. And then that one thing becomes the whole thing.”

  Michael paused to judge my reaction, clearly not wanting to offend me. At the same time, he was pretty worked up and there was a weight to his voice that I hadn’t heard in a while. “But people are layered, Dor. Especially Chris. I mean . . . that’s probably why you two hit it off so well in the first place. And it’s not like that’s changed. It’s not like he’s getting less complicated.

  “I guess I’m just saying you’ve gotta be careful when you tunnel in like that. You might get that smaller part right, sure, but what good is that if you’re wrong overall?”

  I shrugged. “It’s never happened before.”

  Michael stayed solemn, unwilling to let me diminish his point with a joke. “It happened today. You should have seen yourself—Darren recorded the whole thing, but I made him delete it. That’s the kind of scene that could haunt you if it ended up on the link.”

  My pulse clipped. “And you’re sure he erased it all?”

  “I watched him.”

  I sighed, knowing I had to be more careful, especially now when I really couldn’t afford scrutiny. If something bad made it back to the school, I’d get slammed with detentions and GPS monitoring that would make it impossible to hit any more houses. Coach Benson was a limp dick, but Principal Frank wasn’t.

  “You have to watch out, Dor. Everyone has a film now, and you never know when they’re recording.”

  Of course, I already knew this. We’d taken great care to expose ourselves as little as possible and to be so innocuous when we were that no one would have cause to turn their feeds on. But my hands went cold nonetheless as the thought pulled me back in time to the front steps of the Moores’ house. Had anyone seen us go in or out? Had a neighbor been looking through a window or been out walking her dog? Even though this risk was just the cost of doing business, it all seemed so reckless now that it was real.

  “Dorian, are you okay? You don’t . . . you don’t look so good.”

  I sat there in a fog, rehashing all the other things I’d done, too, whom I’d spoken with, and what I’d said. There was so much to keep track of. “Yeah . . . yeah, it’s just everything’s glass now . . .”

  “At least it makes people accountable.”

  “We shouldn’t be accountable for . . . everything. One slip of the tongue shouldn’t ruin someone. It stacks the deck for boring people.” I punched him in the arm, smiling. “People like you.”

  Chapter 11

  After school started, Lena spent a lot less time reading in the park. I wanted to send Syd to Lawrence, but I’d read that they’d installed this super-advanced drone detection system as a result of some unspec
ified incident that parents were up in arms about. I thought about having Syd follow her home but, not only was she too slow, they’d probably have a system there, too, and Ethan was already getting pissed we weren’t casing more houses.

  So, I just watched the footage I did have over and over again. The repetition strangled the excitement, but I couldn’t help myself. I knew the exact moment she would turn every page. I knew the exact moment she would smile to herself. I knew the exact moment two jogging Lawrence kids would show up, talking and laughing in a J Crew ad kind of way. I was so close, but the impossible distance of the pixels made me feel even more alone. I’d always wished I’d had Michael install a microphone, but eventually I downloaded lip-reading software and the whole thing began anew.

  “Hey there, beautiful!” one of the runners called out as he pulled up and circled back over to her. His stride was vaguely recognizable, but it was longer and more graceful than you’d expect—almost like watching a cheetah power down after chasing something in a wildlife documentary. It was so casual and fluid that it made it all the more jarring when his hand shot up in a blur to wipe the sweat out of his eyes—a twitch that I had to rewind and slow down the first time to even see what he was doing.

  I mouthed the words along with her in French. “You can’t call me that with your girlfriend right there, Martin.”

  “That’s why I can. It’s all in the open, right, Abbie?”

  “I suppose,” said the other runner.

  And he was right: She was beautiful, her face a conglomeration of perfectly fitted cells. Ceramic yet powerful. Everything in its right place, but not so on-the-nose that it felt stock. Someone at a clinic had really known what the fuck they were doing.

  “She sees everything anyway because we decided to go all-T this month. You know, kind of a compatibility check—plumbing the depths of our souls—before applying to the same schools and everything.”