Minders (9 page)

“One in a billion,” Willy said. He turned to Ford, and his eyes were sparkling. “Tell you a secret?”

“Sure.”

“I’m gonna propose.” He slapped himself on the leg. “Me, Willy. To a girl like that. What do you think?”

“I think you’ll be really happy,” Ford told him.

“Thanks, man,” Willy said. His expression softened. “James was the one who got me to ask her out, you know that? Did it as a bet. Never would have had the guts to do it otherwise. Great guy, your brother.”

Sadie felt Ford stiffen. “Yep.”

Willy put his hands on Ford’s shoulders. “And so are you.”

Ford laughed. “Thanks.”

“You’ve been a stranger at the Castle for too long. Guy could get his feelings hurt, his friends stop coming around. I was starting to think you’d pulled a Bucky and left without saying goodbye.”

Ford’s mind exploded with a fireworks display of images: a boy of about eleven with dark hair, huge intelligent eyes, and a tool belt slung around his skinny hips, staring earnestly at a hand-drawn map; the same boy a bit taller, wearing a helmet covered in aluminum foil and standing in front of a scraggly bush; taller still, now a gawky teenager, in the middle of a derelict factory building, grinning and holding up an old-fashioned beat box; finally, not taller but older, probably eighteen, with a beard and a backpack and a bandana tied around his head, his big eyes now wild and angry, jumping on a Greyhound bus just before its doors closed.

Ford said, “Bucky disappeared years ago. I’ve only been out of circulation four months.”

“Lot happens in four months around here,” Willy told him. “Practically a lifetime.”

Another burst of sound in Ford’s head. “Yeah, seems that way.” Big daubs of blue, black, and white swept together into a blurry image of Linc leaving the room earlier, and Sadie had the sense that Ford wanted to say more, but Willy cut him off.

“We all miss James, same as you,” he said, draping his massive arm over Ford’s shoulders. “But we’ve got to come together when bad things happen, right? It’s what we do. We’re family”—Willy brought his grin close to Ford—“the kind you pick yourself, so it really counts.”

A warm sensation washed through Ford, and he laughed. “Thanks, Willy.”

Willy pulled him into a bear hug. “Course. Only don’t stay away anymore, okay? You know I’m not the sharpest, and I don’t want to forget that ugly mug of yours.”

They separated, and Willy was about to go when Ford blurted, “Does Plum ever come by?”

Willy paused, meeting Ford’s eyes with a frank, unblinking glance. “Who?”

“Plum. One of James’s girlfriends?”

Willy shook his head back and forth slowly, eyes not leaving Ford’s. “Name’s not familiar. Course, as we were saying, your brother.” He elbowed Ford. “Quite a Casanova.”

Looking into Willy’s wide, smiling face, Ford’s vision dimmed and kept going, the darkness encroaching from around the edges and moving toward the center until Sadie couldn’t see anything.

As his mind blacked out, it flooded with a roar of such force it seemed to have mass and density, some thick, heavy substance that filled every corner, every gap, taking all the available air. The space that had seemed infinite only heartbeats ago now shrank to nothing, trapping Sadie inside of it.

The air was crushed out of her lungs. She gasped for breath and felt herself choking as though she was drowning, flailing.
I have to get out of here,
she thought, panicked
.
I have to escape.
The darkness was suffocating her, pulling her in like a constricting vacuum, twisting the breath, the life, out of her.
What was happening, what was this sensation, what
—

Anger
, she thought, claiming her first emotion.

Everything went black.

CHAPTER 6

S
adie awoke to a guy’s voice saying, “I was at work all day. I told you, babe.”

“Sorry, I must have forgotten,” a girl answered. “I figured since it was Sunday—

“Overtime,” the guy interrupted. “Day shift, noon to eight P.M.”

Sadie, waking fully, recognized the guy’s voice as Ford’s. She opened her eyes and saw a living room. And a girl. Or at least her nose, since the conversation was being whispered while they kissed.

All the signals Sadie was getting from Ford felt subdued, as though everything was covered in a layer of dust. It was more all-encompassing than the dimness before, making not just his vision but his voice seem muffled.

Was it because she’d passed out? Sadie recalled Catrina at lunch discussing how “Syncsleep”—moments when the Minder’s consciousness got overloaded and temporarily withdrew from Syncopy—was common during the first few days of Syncopy. “It usually happens at times of intense emotion for your Subject, distracting you so much you forget to breathe.”

Intense emotion
, Sadie repeated and shuddered at the memory of the clawing, suffocating darkness of his anger.

If it was after eight now, she’d been in Syncsleep for at least four hours. During that time, Ford had been at work doing—

He hadn’t been at work, she realized, at least not when she was awake. Which meant he was lying. To the person who was presumably his girlfriend—
Cali
, Sadie remembered, adding it to the list of his associates’ names in her mental notebook.

So you’re a liar, Ford Winter
, she thought with a twinge of disgust, before reminding herself that she was supposed to be objective.

Maybe the lying accounted for the dusty quality of his thoughts, a sort of film between him and reality. Tying it in with the way things dimmed when someone was bluffing, she added
Lying interferes with vision
to her mental notebook
.

Cali was sitting on the arm of the sofa, with Ford standing between her legs. He pulled her toward him and kissed her forehead. Her eyes closed, but his stayed open, giving Sadie a chance to look around.

The room they were in was small, with a single window in the same wall as the front door. The walls were light blue, the carpeting beige. An old wooden footlocker served as a coffee table, which, with the navy slipcovered sofa, gave the room a sort of a nautical feeling. Behind the couch was a short hallway that led, presumably, to the bedrooms and bathrooms. The wall facing the couch had a wide arch opening into the kitchen, and half of a bricked-up fireplace mantel. The other half, along with part of the plaster medallion in the ceiling, disappeared into the wall.

Between the arch and the fireplace hung a medium-sized television showing
Cookie Wars Deluxe
, the picture completely framed with Ad-Spaces. Like everyone in their neighborhood, Sadie’s parents paid to outsource their ad watching to other people so their content was always ad-free. Intellectually she understood that gave other people the chance to watch extra ads in exchange for less expensive television, but she’d never considered what that really meant until now. The Winters’ television screen was so crowded with Ad-Spaces that it took Sadie a moment to find the small rectangle showing Team Chocolate Chip going up against Team Snickerdoodle in the Cookie Wars Championship among the promos.

Sadie was fascinated and had to suppress a momentary feeling of frustration when Cali pulled away from the kiss and Ford shifted his attention to her.

Cali was blond and pretty, although Sadie thought she would have been prettier with less makeup, less TanTerrific, and less of the unnatural glossiness that straightening tubes imparted to hair. Especially since studies suggested they caused cancer. She wore a white button-down shirt that strained over a white lace-edged bra.

Ford’s eyes focused on the bra as he curled a strand of the carefully straightened hair around his finger and said, “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” That, at least, seemed true, because his vision didn’t get hazier. Sadie noticed there were cuts on his hand that hadn’t been there before. What had happened after she passed out?

Cali reached up and took his hand, moving it from her hair. “That’s okay. It gave me a chance to keep Lulu company.”

“Thanks, babe.” His hips rested between her legs, and his nose touched hers.

Cali started talking about plans for the rest of the week, and Ford’s mind filled with dots. They arranged themselves into a flurry of images—leaving the poker table, walking out of the Castle, staring at a bank machine screen that read INSUFFICIENT CREDIT. Bashing his hand against the wall next to it.
Explains the new cuts
, Sadie thought.

The dots got smaller as the memories went on, giving them a tense, brittle kind of clarity: him opening his wallet and painstakingly counting out bills—ones mostly, a few fives and tens, presumably his poker winnings—ending with only two singles left over. Dropping the wad of bills into a mailbox with a notice next to it that read, ALL RENT MUST BE PAID IN FULL BY 8 A.M. EVERY MONDAY OR TENANT WILL FACE IMMEDIATE EVICTION, with DON’T EVEN THINK OF ASKING FOR AN EXTENSION—THE LANDLORD, written in black pen along the bottom.

“So you’re good with that?” Cali asked.

Sadie had been listening while she watched Ford’s memories, but based on the way all the dots suddenly vanished and the sounds combined into a low hum, she realized he hadn’t heard anything Cali was saying.

He nodded anyway. “Totally. Whatever works for you, works for me.”

Why not just ask what she’s talking about?
Sadie wondered.
It would be so simple.

“You’re the best,” Cali said, bringing her lips to his.

He’s not
, Sadie wanted to tell her.
Ask him what he just said yes to.

“No, you’re the best,” he told Cali.

She rubbed his nose with hers. “No, you are.”

Sadie groaned in frustration.

From the couch behind them a high-pitched voice said, “Agree to disagree. I’m the best. And now that we have that settled, can you please stop? I’m only eleven and whatever you’re doing is far above my pay grade.”

A golden Lab’s head came over the top of the couch to nuzzle Ford’s leg, and Sadie had the impossible thought that the dog had spoken. Then Cali shifted and Sadie saw that a little girl had come in and curled herself into the far corner of the sofa.

She was as blond as Ford was dark, but had the same firm chin, the same stubborn mouth. The same very blue, very serious eyes.

Ford laughed. “Sorry to disturb you, Princess Lulu.” He glanced at his Mickey Mouse watch. “Weren’t you supposed to be in bed half an hour ago?”

Lulu pulled herself up to her whole four-foot height and said, “I don’t think I’m the one who needs to get a room.”

“Is that really how you want to talk to your older brother?” Ford asked, a threat rumbling in his tone.

Lulu put her hands on her hips. “Yes.”

“Your strong, ferocious older brother?” he went on, narrowing his eyes.

Lulu snorted. “Oh, right.”

Sadie didn’t detect the kind of anger she’d felt at the Castle, but Ford’s tone was definitely menacing as he said, “You asked for it,” and lunged for the little girl.

Stop him
, Sadie wanted to yell at Cali.
Don’t let him hurt
—

Ford snatched Lulu into his arms and started tickling her ribs. “Help!” Lulu cried through her giggles.

Sadie was fascinated. Ford’s mindscape was radically changed from the windy place it had been at the Castle, the sounds in a completely different register and somehow slower, simpler.
As if his thoughts and feelings for his sister were uncomplicated,
Sadie noted.

The dustiness of his conversation with Cali vanished as well, and instead of images the points of color were moving around freely, like people at a station waiting for their train to be called. His mind seemed pliant, flexible.
Playful
, Sadie thought, although that didn’t sound very scientific. She’d have to think of a better way to describe it when she was in front of the Committee.

He lifted Lulu up and swung her over his shoulder. Sadie found herself laughing as Lulu protested, “That’s not fair, you’re bigger than I am, so you shouldn’t be able to use your arms, next time you can only use your feet, or maybe what if you just don’t bend your elbows and—”

He paused to give Cali a kiss and said, “I’ll be right back.”

“No he won’t,” Lulu told her from behind Ford’s back as he carried her to the hallway. “I’m going to get him for this, I’m going to—”

She went silent as they approached a partially open door on the left, and Ford’s mind filled with static that didn’t subside until they got to the door at the end of the hallway with a purple marker sign taped to it that said: PALACE OF PRINCESS LULU. NO ENTRY WITHOUT PERMISSION.

“Permission to enter,” Ford asked on the threshold.

“Permission granted,” Lulu told him. “But you have to read me a story.”

“You can read yourself a story,” Ford said, flipping her onto her bed.

Only the bedside light was on, but the room was small, so it was enough to take in the bunk bed with pink comforters, an unfinished dollhouse, and two stacks of milk crates, one side holding neatly folded clothes and the other side holding books. The room was meticulously tidy. Sadie felt at home.

Sadie hadn’t seen the dog follow them, but he nosed the door open, lumbered up onto the bed beside the girl, and sat looking at her expectantly.

“See, Copernicus wants you to read to him,” Ford pointed out.

Lulu rolled her eyes. “You just want to go make out with Cali.”

“True,” Ford said. He bent over and looked under the bunk bed. “Nothing lurking,” he announced. “Good—”

“Mom didn’t go to work again today.” Lulu’s voice was quiet and tense. “It’s the third week in a row.”

Another burst of static. Dots of color collected into the image of the ATM screen saying INSUFFICIENT CREDIT in Ford’s mind. “I know. But I’m sure she’ll be better soon.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that’s what always happens. Don’t worry, okay?”

Lulu nodded, her little face somber. She leaned toward him to whisper, “Could you look again? Just to be sure?”