The Pedestal (13 page)

“Tell me,” he says, and stifles a brittle cough.

So I do.

I keep thinking of something Stew said as I was walking out his door. “
Be careful, Wil
,” he whispered. “
You know what they say about putting the cat back in the bag.
” His words are foreboding enough alone, but they aren’t solely responsible for my wariness. There was also something unspoken, a sense of defeat buried in his limp posture. Watching him stand at the door in his prison pajamas, it was if he was seeing into the future, glimpsing something terrible. Something too saddening to put into words. Then, just as I hit the sidewalk, he called out to me in a voice marbled and tremulous with worry: “
Love ya, kid. You know?
”

At two thirty, I give up on sleeping and make some coffee. My stomach is in knots, but I gulp the stuff down anyway, both for the caffeine and the distraction for my restless hands. I’m looking through my pantry for something to snack on when my NanoPrint vibrates. I shouldn’t be startled—this is something that happens with such regularity, after all; I’m still getting notifications every time Nikes go on sale down the street, for crying out loud—but I guess I suddenly have a bad feeling. I close my eyes and filter through my updates. A couple of hundred have accrued since I last checked them; I scan to the most recent, past all the junk—

No, I don’t need more stamina in the bedroom.

No, I’m not ready to take my love for the cosmos to the next level.

No, I don’t want to see a directory of lonely women in my quadrant.

—and settle on the last notice. I read the words, and my blood freezes in my veins.

The police station is abuzz with the usual suspects: prostitutes, drunken vagabonds, wife-beaters, teenaged vandals. I’d like to think I’m too upset to notice these details, but the truth is that my curiosity is the only thing grounding me to reality. Without it, I might just collapse. In fact, that’s exactly what happens when I remember why I’m here. I try to keep calm, but it’s an exercise in futility. I have no control over the sobs that overtake me and batter me with seismic tremors.

A detective named Rackley takes me back to his office and asks me questions: when was the last time I saw Stewart; who were his friends; who might’ve had a beef with him; on and on. It’s pretty easy to infer from this line of questioning that Stew didn’t die of natural causes, and that makes his passing infinitely more difficult to accept.

At some point, my composure begins a wounded progression from shock to grief, and finally to indignation. Why do they need to ask all these stupid questions? All they have to do is check the nexus—law enforcement agencies have their own portal to the nexus, which is reputedly far more powerful and user-friendly than anything I’ve ever worked with—and they’ll have all the information they need. Yet as the detective continues to exhaust this line of questioning, I realize he’s shaking this bush for a reason.

And as the implications of this burgeon in my tired little brain, I become more than a little uncomfortable.

Rackley doesn’t arrest me—thank God—but the look in his eyes as he escorts me from the building tells me he’s got his man all picked out. I take some comfort in knowing that he bears the burden of proof—and that none exists to incriminate me. Still, I know my every move will be scrutinized from here on out, and that isn’t good news.

I suppose this doesn’t bother me as much as it probably should. Frankly, I can recall feeling similarly since time imprinted against my very first memories—the feeling that every decision I make will someday come back to haunt me. That fear has never ceased to crowd my decisions, even if I’ve become used to its relentless presence—even now, it remains the dark, foreboding figure at the back of the tram: we all eventually grow accustomed to him, but most of us will never let ourselves forget that he’s there.

What bothers me more is that as long as Rackley remains fixated on me, the real killer is free to kill again at his leisure.

It’s eight thirty by the time I get home. I’m so exhausted I can barely see straight. I stumble into my room and literally fall into bed. Forget work, forget food. Forget everything—I just want to sleep or die, and I honestly don’t favor one over the other right now. I feel my NanoPrint nagging at me, but it’s only just discernible as I tumble into blissful unconsciousness, where nothingness graciously obscures the repeating theme of death and grief in my life.

Someone is pounding on my door. I groan and pantomime a shriek of frustration into my pillow, yet I drag myself from the comfort of my bed and across the footprint of my condo to the front door. On the adjacent wall, my door monitor illuminates the digital representation of Adrian, who looks so haggard with worry that her prettiness only just prevails.

Cripes.

I let her in, an apology spilling out of me before the door is half open. She grapples me into a desperate hug, squeezing me like she more than half-expected me to be dead. Then she releases me and commences to slap me silly.

I raise my hands in defense. “Hey, what’re you d—”

“Don’t—you—ever—do—that—to—me—again!” Each word is emphasized by a stinging slap against my bare skin.
Do what?
I wonder. Did I black out and force her to delete her scrappy movie collection?

“Okay, let’s just settle down and—”

Slap.
“Don’t tell me to settle down!” she seethes. “How dare you disappear without any explanation and not even bother to let me know you’re okay!”

Jeez
, I think. If she’d just looked at my daygrid, she’d have seen that I was here—and that I spent half the morning at the police station. Suddenly, as if on cue, my NanoPrint shivers and throws a notice. For once, I take a second to read it.

When I do? I want to cry.

Are you sure you want to remain in Privacy Mode? This is your sixth notice; to disable this recurring notification, simply change your privacy preferences to
—

Oh, no.

That explains a lot, I realize. How I must’ve looked to Rackley, inaccessible to the nexus even as I labored to answer his questions with nothing to hide. How I must look now, to Adrian. I feel like I might throw up.

“I’m sorry, honey. Really, I just forgot I was in privacy mode yesterday and—”

“Who is she?” she interjects in a voice thickened by distrust. “What’s her name? Is it that Mitzy tramp?”

“Wait a second, now. You’re jumping to the wrong conclusion, okay?”

She pauses for a second, then another. I can’t believe she’s giving me a chance to explain myself. Actually, now that she is, I’m not sure what to say. Her nostrils are flaring, cheeks flushed red. For a second, despite the inappropriateness of my timing, all I can think of is how sexy she is when she’s angry.

“Well, I’m waiting.”

Have I mentioned that I’m a terrible liar? My deficiency in this area prevents me from trying often. Normally, this is a practice that has served me well. But given the extraordinary events that I’ve been through in the last few days, I doubt the truth will be any more believable than anything I can make up. I’m too tired to embellish, though.

I tell her about poor Stewart and my interrogation, my narrative picking up momentum until it drifts outside of my control. I lose steam after a while and fall into tearful silence.

“Why is this happening?” I want to know. “First Arthur and now Stewart?”

“Poor baby,” Adrian croons. “Everything’s gonna be fine now.”

I want to believe her—desperately, perhaps more than anything—but I can’t. My life is falling apart around me, and as much as it hurts, I know deep in my gut that the heartache is only just beginning.

Keith greets me with a frown, and though I’m disrespectful of his authority as a general rule—treading the line of insubordination for the sheer joy of it, in fact—I have to admit that I’ve been remarkably flaky lately. Not only have I cashed in several untimely absences in the past week, I’ve also made no effort to warn my coworkers—much less my boss—that I would be out. Unlike some of the guys around here, and in spite of my tenure, I’m quite expendable. They could easily teach a monkey to do my job. Of course, if they dared, charges of animal cruelty would surely follow, considering how deliriously boring my job can be. Honestly, if it wasn’t for IntelliQ, I’d fall into a protective coma immediately upon arriving at work—and I’d have absolutely no leverage at this company.

I follow Keith back into the womb of his office, wishing I had taken the time to prepare a defense, or that I had the energy to cough one up now, on the fly.

Sigh
.

I’m just so tired of this, all the limelight and cloak-and-dagger scrap. I want to come clean, to have my old, boring life back.

But Keith has other plans. Instead of seating himself behind his desk, he stands directly in front of me, leaning forward with his rear hinged against the edge of his desk. The expression on his face isn’t one of disappointment—it’s pity. He’s hunched forward with his head cocked slightly to one side—I think he’s going for an air of sympathy and approachability, but he looks more like a sexless bear with a bad crick in the neck. And what’s worse? Courtesy of a popped shirt button, Keith is inadvertently providing a free, eye-melting peepshow of his man-boobs, which seem to come and go throughout the months—and are more there than not, at the moment. Tim has a theory, incidentally, that Keith’s amorphous body hasn’t given in to all the formulaic hormone treatments, and is attempting to menstruate as it was originally designed to do.

In case you’re wondering, my genes don’t keep me thin all on their own: mental rabbit holes of this repulsive variety are pretty effective appetite suppressants. Right now, for example, I’m so grossed out that I have to breathe through my mouth and look at the floor just to keep my breakfast down. I can feel it churning in my belly like a quivering ball of baby snakes.

Keith takes this as some sort of grieving cry for help—remind me to give Tim a good smack upside the head the next time I see him—and puts a fat hand on my shoulder. With a groan, I swallow back a little bile that has slithered up my throat despite my best efforts.