Playing Tyler (17 page)

Shit. Probably can't get good reception in here. “Hello?” I try again.

“Tyler?” The voice is distant, shaky, nervous.

My throat tightens and the shouting from the kitchen and the clattering of the plates and the swoosh of the swinging door beside me all cluster up and hang around me until it's just a muffled ball of nothingness. A tunnel of light and sound and the world shrinks in around me, making me desperate for some air so I can breathe enough to say, “Brandon?”

“Hey, bro. Thought I'd just–”

“Where are you?” The words fly from my lips, hot, loud and shaking.

“Don't get all tough-guy on me, Ty, I'm just calling to tell you that I'm OK, alright?”

“No, it's not fucking alright, B. You left rehab six days ago and you can't even…”

He's not there. I hear the click and he's gone. Just gone. Leaving me holding a phone. All at once the restaurant that seemed so overwhelming and chaotic goes. Disappears. Staring at the black phone in my hand. Staring. Like the phone has the answers. Like it can make things better. I should be pissed. Upset. Whatever. Too many times. Too drained. Too tired to be pissed.

The waiter. He's talking to me. Sliding a bill in front of me. “Need anything else? You alright?”

I don't know if I'm alright. If anything is alright. I pull a twenty out of my wallet and slap it on the table with a nod.

Why did B call that reporter before he called me?

 

CHAPTER 19

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21

TYLER

Three days since the phone call from B. He called me from a pay phone. A
pay phone
. I don't know where he even found one. He hasn't called again. But if he showed up dead in some morgue I guess we'd hear about it. Every time a cop car goes by I hold my breath, hoping that they'll just keep driving. They do.

Rick's here. It's been a while. I can't find the words. The right words to ask what's creeping around in my head.

“So, your mom said that you took the GED?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I think I did pretty good. It'll work out, get me a job or whatever.”

I turn my head back to the sim screen, watching as it goes back to the start screen and I hit the key to shut it down. Rick just watches me. Watches me fly. Says it's for his recommendation for the flight school.

He leans back in his chair, pressed pants and sweater doing nothing to hide the fact that he's watching. His eyes. They're hard, solid, unyielding. He's no desk jockey. Don't think he ever could be. He's built for action.

“I like that about you.” He reads my face for some hidden signal to continue. “Fortitude. Men like you and me, we display fortitude in the face of adversity, in the face of pain.” He leans forward. “A strong man learns to accept the mistakes and move on. Like me, like you.”

I think of the mission the simulator just flew. Bombed a house. Got target twenty-three. Target twenty-three was sitting on a roof. Drinking tea or whatever. With other people. Lots of other people. Six other people. I dropped a Hellfire on the house. Flew back around. Nothing but rubble. And a dog. Limping. Covered in blood. Can't shoot it. Can't use the ammo. Can't drop a Hellfire on a dog to put it out of its misery. On a building that is nothing but rubble. Rubble and bits of bones and fabric and stuff that used to be seven people. My stomach hurts. Sick. I can barely keep it all inside. Terrorists. They were all terrorists. I did the right thing, probably saved lots of American lives. I swallow. “Fortitude. Sure.”

He pulls a flask from his pocket and takes a sip. It's a small, silver thing, etched from wear, not decoration. I look at him, his brows pinched like he's angry.

Voice small, I say, “It's cool, you know.”

His eyebrows lift up and he leans forward in his chair towards me just a little.

“I know that some of these missions are real.” I don't know, not for sure, but as I see the mix of worry and fear and the hint of a smile curl up the tip of his lips I become more certain. “I know that I'm actually flying the drones. It's cool, Rick. I want to help. It's all I've ever wanted. To help.”

His face freezes in an odd expression for a moment. Light seems to rise up and radiate through his skin, his lips squeezing tight then opening up into a full smile. He leans over quickly and slaps me on the leg with a great booming laugh. “See that. That right there, Tyler. I saw that in you from the first. Intelligence, integrity. Some scraggly little kid who wanted to fly a plane, sure, but there was something more. There's always been something more.”

I look down, eyeing my feet, my boots. “Sure. Why didn't you just tell me?”

“Telling you wasn't an option. Part of the rationale behind the program was to keep stress levels of pilots down. Too many have been breaking down. We've seen some adverse psychological effects on some operators who go home to their wives and kids every night. Having our test pilots not know that they were actually flying was our way of seeing if it would help with their anxiety.”

“Has it?”

“Well, so far. You see, the government is having problems with the software that it uses to control the drones. The Air Force and the CIA buy these remote-access units from Althea, and it would take two, sometimes three men to fly a single drone. Three control units, three men, to fly one drone. They say they need one to pilot, one as a sensor operator, and then an intel officer to OK the missions before either one of the other two is allowed to do shit. Not to mention the fact that they still haven't figured out how to launch the things without men on the ground. They see the future, I see inefficiency.” He takes out his flask. Takes a swig. “So I got the best minds in the business together and came up with a way to automate take-offs and landings. Then we put multiple drones on one control unit, but the problem was that none of the pilots trained were able to run the damn thing. The pilots were too old, not used to the way things are now, not capable of the manual dexterity of the young.”

“How do you get your intel?”

“We have intelligence operatives on the ground who relay mission objectives and target in real time to SKY.”

“But is it good intel? I mean, like, we're not hitting civilians, are we?”

He takes another swig from the flask. “Our people on the ground are the very best. They have years of training and experience in the region. Everybody's human; some mistakes are unavoidable. But, Tyler, those operators love you, you saved their asses the other day.”

“Really?” The men on the ground, asking for close air support.

“Really. They needed help immediately, didn't have time to go through SKY, so they chose you, and you came through in a major way.”

“So what does all this make me, then?”

“You, Tyler, you are the next generation of soldier. You're the next generation of hero. You can not only use the machine, but can control multiple drones at one time. You're exactly what we need. That and hundreds of men just like you. We can revolutionize the face of modern warfare. Streamline the system. Save our government money by providing a more efficient way to make war.”

“The government would really hire a private contractor to fight its wars?”

“Sure, it saves a lot of money.” He points to the screen with the map. “One hundred percent of your missions, both simulated and live, take place here, in and around the border of Pakistan and the Helmand province of Afghanistan. This is basically the center of gravity for the Taliban insurgency, and we still have something like eight thousand coalition troops in bases throughout the region. These forces require massive amounts of ammo, fuel and food. Now, the Jihadis won't go toe-to-toe with conventional NATO forces because they know that they'd lose. Instead, their primary goal is to attack our supply routes and make the occupation unsustainable. Road security becomes essential to our success.”

“So that's what I'm doing? Protecting the roads?”

“Basically. Haranco can't achieve the same results as a battalion of infantry and the accompanying helicopters and such, but a squadron of our UAVs can handle eighty percent of their objectives at only five percent of the cost.”

“Cool.” So I'm doing what the military does. Keeping people safe, saving money and saving lives.

“Currently, most of your live routes have been flying cover for a Pakistani company that has hired us to assure that the supplies it carries to NATO forces arrive safely.”

“Great. What do we do now? I mean, did I like throw off your whole program because I figured out what was going on?”

“Not at all. And now I can pay you what you've been earning, Tyler.”

“Pay me?”

“It was in the fine print of the papers you signed, not that you were really flying the mission, but that you agreed to be an employee of Haranco and that you would accept payment in full at the end of your term of service.” He clasps me on the shoulder. “Since you're no longer in the dark, we can just go ahead and pay you as a beta tester.”

“How much?”

“You're gaining a highly specialized skill-set, son.”

“How much?”

He holds the flask out to me. “A lot.”

 

Rick's sitting at my kitchen table. Should have cleaned it a little more. Sitting next to an envelope full of two thousand dollars in cash and in front of his laptop. Two grand. Cash. On my table. For me. To pay me to fight terrorism. Never seen so much cash before. Kind of strange that it can all fit in one little manila envelope. Weird to think Rick just walks around with that crap in his car.

“Like I said, part of the reason for keeping you in the dark was to keep your stress level as low as possible. Now that you know, I don't want you flying more than twenty hours a week to start.”

“But that's barely flying,” I say. Leg shaking as I try and sit. Sit at the table. Legs too long. They hit the bottom of the table. Knocking the old newspapers and pile of bills that I shoved out of the way to make room for Rick.

“Twenty hours. Just to see, Tyler. Then we can increase it again, I'm sure. Not to worry. We're hoping to set up a type of virtual band of brothers. Men in the field deal with stress through camaraderie, through having people who go through hell with them. Drone pilots have to try and pull themselves together in time to pick up Junior at soccer practice by 5.30. Part of Haranco's plan is to use the clan system that you kids use in your gaming networks. Set up sort of a ‘clan of brothers,' if you will, a way for our new generation of pilots to bond. Our problem right now is that you're the only one who figured out that some of your missions are real, so we don't have a clan in place for you yet. So we need to watch you carefully.”

“You gonna tell whoever else has the sim?”

“Later.” He pulls out three tickets to tonight's Patriots game. “But first we've got some celebrating to do. Let's go get your mother, we don't want to miss kickoff.”

 

 

CHAPTER 20

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22

ANI

What do I do with him? I thought that having a few days to clear my head would help, but I still don't know what to do. I don't want any part of this, but it's not like I can walk away, either. Maura skips up to the table and sets her tablet down around my limp half-sandwich and mostly soggy carrots. She says, “So, why the face? Did you finish
The Awakening
? You did, didn't you? It was sad. But at least I know what I'm going to write about for the essay: marriage as repression. Good, huh?”

“Yeah, but everyone's going to be writing something pretty similar.” I grab a soggy carrot, and drop it back down again. How do raw carrots get soggy like that? It just doesn't seem like they should. I hope it's not some sort of mold.

“It's that guy from the theater, isn't it?” She takes a huge bite of her sandwich, grilled eggplant drooping just below the bottom of the bun. She chews and I wait, resenting her sandwich. Maybe I could go back and get something else, like a bag of chips. “The one that keeps sending you those songs?”

“That's him.” Tyler's been sending me different mp3s every hour to my phone, choosing the song by title. Every one is some variation of either “I'm sorry” or “Don't be mad” neither of which make that much sense. If I'm being honest, I'm not really mad at him. Well, I am, which is why I haven't texted him back, but I'm more upset with Mr Anderson, with myself for getting into this situation in the first place. Tyler's a patriotic guy, he's never once tried to pretend to be anything else. He wanted to be a pilot in the Air Force and there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, Dad was in the Army. And I love my dad. But I sort of hate the Army for taking him away from me for so long. I hate them for not seeing he needed help before he ended up in jail. And I want to be proud, I want to be proud of everything Dad ever did, it feels jealous and wrong of me to resent the armed forces. To blame them for what happened. But there it is.

“You guys get into your first fight? If the song choices are any indication, it's pretty clear he messed up.” Maura chews with her mouth open. She really is nice and I like eating with her, but I can't watch her eat when she does it. I push the remnants of my lunch away.

“I don't
know
if he messed up, that's sort of the problem.” I don't think I can remember feeling this confused in my entire life.

“Look” – I look up and regret it instantly when I catch a view of a mouth full of eggplant, I look back down at the table as she says – “everybody fights. Unless he like slept with your roommate or something, it's probably salvageable.”