The Faculty Club

22

What fear! Fear like I had never felt before. I remembered myself checking locked doors, locked windows, putting chairs under the doorknob-worthless! What a fool I was, thinking I could ever be safe with them against me.

I had to get out of my room. I needed somewhere to hide while I thought this through.

I cut a wild path through campus, walking with my head down and hands deep in my pockets, a wool hat pulled low over my eyes.

I knocked on Miles’s door and prayed he would answer.

Finally, I heard rustling. He opened the door, looking like I’d roused him out of a very deep sleep. Miles in pajamas-all six foot seven and three hundred pounds of him-was an unnatural sight. And considering my night up to that moment, that was saying a lot.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Miles said, rubbing his face.

“I’m sorry, Miles.”

“What time is it?”

I started to say something.

“It’s a rhetorical question. I have a clock. What I mean is, what the fuck?”

“Miles,” I said, “we need to get inside.”

That surprised him.

“Miles, I’m in trouble…”

He studied me. I watched it dawn on him.

“You didn’t,” he said softly.

“Miles, I-”

“You didn’t,” he said.

I couldn’t say anything. I just nodded.

“Damn it,” he shouted, and his voice thundered down the hall.

“Miles, we have to get inside…”

“IT DOESN’T MATTER,” he shouted at me. I saw a look in his eyes, one that I hadn’t seen in years. It was the look he used to get in debate matches. The one that said I’m going to destroy you. Forget his size. Forget his mass. That look was why they called him The Beast.

“I warned you,” he growled. “I told you not to mess with them. Didn’t I? You didn’t listen. Goddamn it. What did you do?”

I started to explain, but he talked over me.

“You came here?”

I paused. I hadn’t thought about that.

“You fucked up and then you come here?”

“Miles, no one followed me.”

“How do you know? You don’t know anything.”

He smacked the door with his massive fist.

“I could send you away right now. You haven’t told me anything. I could shut the door right now.”

“Miles, I don’t know what to do.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed his face.

“Fuck,” he said. “Fuck.” He slammed the wall and I felt it shudder.

He walked inside, but he left the door open. I followed him and locked us in.

He sat on the futon. The old thing groaned under him. He rubbed his face with both hands. He took several giant breaths. Some of the angry flush went out of his cheeks. When he spoke, he was calmer.

“It was Chance, right? You and Chance met up again.”

I hesitated, then said yes.

He nodded a couple of times to himself. The heaving of his massive shoulders slowed.

“It was a mistake, putting you two together. I thought I could control it. It’s my mistake.” He rubbed his neck. “It’s okay,” he said finally. “You’re frightened. It’s okay.”

“No. I shouldn’t have come.”

He shook his head.

“I know you and I know Chance. I’m the connection. They would’ve put it together anyway.”

“Miles,” I said. “I’m really scared.”

He looked at me, and the beast was gone from his eyes. They were calm again, philosopher’s eyes-warm, wrinkled at the corners.

“Scared,” he said, nodding. “That’s a good start.”

We called Chance. No answer.

“We need to go over there,” I said. “He might be in trouble.”

“Slow down. We need a plan first or you’re going to get us all killed.”

“We should call the cops,” I said. “Tell them everything. It’s the only way.”

Miles smiled at me, and it was an annoying, patronizing smile.

“Jeremy, these aren’t the kind of people you just report to the police. Or the FBI, MI6, Sydney Bristow, or Batman, for that matter.”

“Then what?”

Miles picked up a Rubik’s Cube from the table, smacked it down hard, then started pacing and fiddling with it. It was a nervous habit that went back to childhood. His dad had given him his first cube on his tenth birthday. Whenever he had a problem to solve, Miles would pick up the cube and start fidgeting with it.

It seemed so simple. Just nine squares on a side. In high school, Miles used to tell me there were forty-three quintillion possible configurations of the cube: forty-three followed by eighteen zeros. The Earth would fall into the sun before our fastest computers could find the best solution for every position.

It begged the question: how could something so simple get so screwed up?

He sighed.

“You’re in a bad position. You know enough to be in trouble, but not enough to protect yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

“Think about it. A secret can get you killed, but it can also save your life.”

“You sound like a fortune cookie.”

Miles glared at me. “You came to me.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But you did sound like a cookie, a little.”

“Yeah, well try this one on for size: there’s only one way to kill a shadow.”

He looked at me without a trace of humor.

“How’s that?”

“Turn on the light.”

Miles outlined a plan. I would find Humpty Dumpty and get him to tell me everything he could about the V &D, as quickly as possible. We would document everything in writing, make copies, and address them to all sorts of people-reporters, investigators, conspiracy theorists, anyone we could think of. Then, we’d seal those envelopes in larger envelopes and send them to Miles’s most trusted friends at big law firms. Firms that knew about offshore accounts and information that had to be invisible yet accessible. Miles would reach out to them quietly, informally. They would never even know what the information was about. They would just know that if something happened to us, they were to open the envelope and drop the package inside in the mail. That was the leverage: we would live in a precarious balance, like Schrödinger’s cat; the information would exist and not exist, and everyone could go on living. I had no idea if the plan would work, if it even made sense. But I couldn’t think of anything better. And I was so tired, so scared, that I grabbed on to it like the revealed word of God.

“Now,” Miles said, slipping into a sweater. “Who else have you been with since the night at the plant?”

I felt my heart stop.

Sarah.