“Professor, I was hoping you would be able to tell me how to deal with this thing. I don’t think it’s safe to leave uncontained.”

  He chuckled, and I was worried he would break into another fit of coughing.

  “Mr. Valentine, there isn’t a thing in the universe more dangerous than God. And you can’t control Him.”

  I frowned. I wasn’t sure how to argue with him.

  “Is it because it can control people? Is that why you think it’s God?”

  “Control people?”

  His brow creased. I felt a little uncomfortable.

  “That’s what it does, right? Evi controls people. It tells you what to do.”

  “No.”

  “No?” I repeated, slightly shocked. I was sure I had worked this much out. Evi had some kind of limited control over those it interacted with. “What do you mean? That’s what it does. It tells someone to do something, and then they do it. That’s why Dexter killed himself. Evi told him to.”

  “No.”

  I was getting frustrated. I’d seen this happen. Evi had told me to break up with Claire and I did. It had convinced Shinji that he was being followed. It had mesmerized me and Gordon while it tortured Shinji. The program had an incredible amount of influence over anyone it interacted with.

  “But I’ve seen how people act when they come in contact with it. They’re irrational – they can’t help themselves.”

  “Evi doesn’t control anyone. That’s not how it works.”

  “Professor, with all due respect–”

  “Evi doesn’t make you do anything you wouldn’t do on your own,” Hiro frustratedly insisted. “It’s much more terrible than that.”

  Hiro winced in fear as a tear danced down his broken face. Terror was etched so deeply into his psyche that it was almost a comfort. Whatever demon Hiro was battling, it had a powerful sway over him.

  “Evi exposes you to yourself,” he continued. “It acts like a kind of mirror for what’s inside – shows you who you really are. It points out all the disgusting bits of yourself – the spiteful, needy, broken person inside. Evi doesn’t make you do anything. But a person faced with their deepest fears and guilt will do irrational things. What makes Evi so dangerous is not what it does to us…it’s what we do ourselves after it shows us who we are.”

  Hiro stared back at the ceiling.

  “That’s why I’m going to be judged.”

  His eyes snapped shut. I waited for them to open again.

  “Professor?”

  No answer.

  “Professor?”

  Hiro was done talking.

  I leaned forward – got up close to his bed – he appeared to be sleeping. He wasn’t going to be of any use to me, I decided. He was too far-gone. I had other things that needed to be taken care of anyway.

  I started for the door, but halfway through the doorframe, Hiro’s abrasive voice crackled to life one last time.

  “I feel like I’m drowning.”

  We are all drowning.

  I spun around. Hiro was staring me down. I’ve never held the gaze of a man who looked more fully in control. I saw clarity in his eyes – a calmness. At the same time, the weight of a million suns plowed into me as I looked down the black holes of his retinae. The impact of his stare pinned me to where I stood.

  “I’ve sinned so much,” he squeaked. “I’ve failed so many people.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “So have I.”

  “Will you testify for me?”

  I nodded.

  He smiled, but it was a sad smile.

  “Do you feel that?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “I feel lighter. Thank you.”

  Hiro sniffed the air and sighed. His body twitched subtly and then slumped in the bed.

  He was fading away.

  The instruments next to him began to whine. I felt dizzy. A familiar presence entered the room. Death was here. An unmarked period of time passed before a few nurses ran into the room. Through the corners of my eye, I watched them bustle about. I was still holding Hiro’s gaze when the life vanished from his face. Somehow Hiro was willing himself to die.

  Then someone pushed me out into the hall.

  I took a deep breath. The hospital air was thick with memories. They surrounded me, crowding my vision. I coughed. It hurt. I couldn’t seem to get enough air in my lungs. I felt lightheaded, and my brow began to trickle with sweat. The nearest bench was five feet away, and I stumbled to it. Invisible waves pressing in on me from all sides. I was drowning – not that that was unusual. We are all drowning in something; it always hurts to breathe when you’re drowning.

  0101001001001111010101010100111001000100001000000101

  0100010010000101001001000101010001010010

  110000100000010001100100100101

  00011101001000010101

  0000100001

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: ROUND THREE, FIGHT!

  Like a waking vampire, the Hayward estate rose ominously in front of me as the sun’s last rays fled from the sky. A lot had changed since I’d last been here. The house seemed somehow more sinister than I remembered it. I sat in my car in silence for a good half-hour before I’d finally built up the courage to climb the front steps.

  As soon as I reached for the buzzer, the door swung open. A short gray-haired woman whom I’d never met stood on the other side. She motioned for me to enter. I’d barely crossed the entryway when she closed the door behind me.

  “Mr. Hayward is waiting for you in his office,” she said.

  “He’s expecting me?”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she turned and silently walked away, circling up the grand staircase just beyond the foyer.

  I had to presume David had seen me waiting in my car.

  At the end of a darkened, echoless hall was David Hayward’s home office. I didn’t bother knocking; it was open.

  The room was nearly empty. Curtains had been drawn across the room’s only window – a few beams of evening light cracked through their center. A single portrait of potted flowers decorated one wall, and a bookshelf rested against the other. The room had an old, musty smell that reminded me of my grandparent’s house – something reminiscent of a room that hadn’t been used in years.

  For a second, I thought I was alone. Then I saw him. My eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light, but his silhouette slowly came into contrast with the chair behind his desk. As I got closer, I could see that his meaty form was stuffed into a large pair of swim trunks. An untied robe had been draped over his shoulders. I could smell the beads of sweat and chlorine trickling off him. They moved in rhythm with the slow rise and fall of his chest. He rolled a small glass of brown liquid between the fingers of his right hand.

  I didn’t need to hear him speak to know he was drunk.

  “Did you come to gloat, Jack? Come to tell me ‘I told you so?’”

  I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I came to talk.”

  I sat down in a chair on the other side of his desk. I’d been in this position before. Last time I’d been prepared; this time I was winging it.

  “Why don’t we cut the crap, and go right to the part where you leave?”

  His gritty, cigarette-distorted voice fired like a gun.

  “I c-came to talk about Evi,” I stuttered back.

  “It’s all there.” He motioned to a grey box on the floor next to his desk. I recognized it immediately. It was Shinji’s work computer. “My technicians won’t deal with it anymore. It unnerves them.”

  Something wasn’t right with David. I knew immediately what had happened. He had taken my advice. He had tried interacting with Evi. I wondered what it had shown him.

  “Take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

  I frowned. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t move.

  “What else do you want, Jack? Do you want me so say ‘you were right?’ Would that make you happy?”

  “No,” I whispered.

  “Well, it should.”

  “Mr. Hayward, I don’t know what you’re going throu–”

  “I expected so much from him. I pushed him so hard. That’s why we fought so much. I was coaching him towards excellence.”

  “Maybe he just needed a father.”

  He glared at me.

  “I imagine that you know all about our relationship, Jack. He told you all our family secrets. You must know every sin I’ve committed.”

  I shrugged.

  “You have me at a disadvantage,” he added.

  David stretched out his arms, effectively displaying his chiseled torso. He had at least a quarter of a century on me, and he was still in better shape. No matter what he said, I would not make the mistake of believing I had any advantage over the great David Hayward.

  “I gave Dexter anything – everything – he needed. He never wanted for a thing.”

  He struggled to his feet. He was yelling now.

  “I showered him with love. He had a beautiful home. Ate gourmet meals every night. Went to the finest schools. Owned the most expensive toys.”

  “That’s not love,” I said. “Those are amenities.”

  I stood too. We needed to be on even ground.

  “Mr. Hayward, your worst crime against your son wasn’t stealing his work or trying to corrupt it after he died. It was failing to accept him for who he was.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like to be a father.”

  “I know what it’s like to fail someone you love. I know what it’s like to sacrifice a beautiful relationship for something easier.”

  He growled at me as he started to walk around the desk.

  “Do you know what it was like watching my wife drink herself to death? Do you know the emotional and mental sacrifices I made trying to raise a child by myself while running one of the largest business empires in the nation? Do you know how hard it was for me to even look at my son after his mother passed away?”

  I nodded and looked down. I didn’t want to face him.

  “You can’t walk away from the kinds of mistakes I’ve made,” David continued. “They haunt you. In moments you least expect, the memories claw their way out of your subconscious. You see your kid graduate summa cum laude, and it’s the happiest moment you can remember since he was born. Then, all of a sudden, you remember the shockwave that rippled down your arm as your fist shattered his jaw when he was fourteen, and that’s when you know you’re damned. That’s when you know you can never – no matter how you try – you can never redeem yourself.”

  We were standing chest-to-chest now – our faces inches apart. He stared me down like a wild tiger ready to devour a meal. For a second, I thought he was going to hit me.

  “Get out of my house.”

  He brushed past me, nearly knocking me over.

  Then I was alone.

  A small tremor of relief shivered through me. My hands were twitching. I had put up a brave face in front of the fury, but now all I wanted to do was go home. I’d come here, because I felt some kind of obligation of friendship – like I owed it to Dexter to settle things with his father. But I hadn’t resolved anything. I couldn’t.

  I looked over at the computer beside David’s desk. That was what I had come for. Evi was in that box. I walked up to the CPU tower and bent down to pick it up, then carried the tower to the door, pausing to adjust my grip. I could hear David splashing around in his pool downstairs.

  This was it – I was home free. One lonely stretch of hallway stood between me and the exit. It was less than fifty feet away. I could run for it. I could have taken the computer and gone. I didn’t actually owe Dexter anything. The asshole had killed himself. He’d left me alone to deal with his mess.

  I started for the exit.

  Then stopped.

  As if controlled by some external force, I turned around, and walked down the stairs into the pool room.

  Chemicals smacked my nose as I entered. The pool was immaculately clean and blue. Florescent lights glinted off the tiled floor. The side wall of the room was lined with mirrors. David did one final lap before stopping at the opposite end of the pool. He wiped the water from his eyes and looked up at me. I stood tall under the doorframe.

  He frowned.

  The fact that I was still there was an insult. He pulled himself out of the pool and began toweling off, while I stood silent. I was still holding the computer awkwardly under my arm.

  As he toweled off his hair, he spoke. “I thought I told you to leave.” His voice echoed over the water, and it sounded almost like he was standing at my side.

  “I decided not to.”

  He stared me down.

  “What are you trying to prove, Jack?”

  I didn’t really know. I set the computer down near the door and walked the length of the pool. I swallowed hard then opened my mouth. I didn’t know what I was going to say until it was out of my mouth. But once I’d said it, everything clicked into place.

  “Mr. Hayward, you didn’t kill your son.”

  “What!” His eyes bore through me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “You know what it means,” I said. “You’re blaming yourself for Dexter’s death, but it’s not your fault.”

  “Are you mocking me?”

  I took another step forward. My actions were not my own. My words were not my own.

  “Trust me, I’ve been where you are right now. I’ve stood in that exact spot. I know what it’s like to live with this kind of guilt.”

  “My son committed suicide!”

  “I know, and it’s not your fault.”

  He shook his head furiously.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I know what pain feels like, David.”

  I wasn’t going to give him the honor of being called ‘mister’ anymore; I wasn’t giving him that power. My voice remained passive, completely emotionless.

  “You know what the sad part is?” I continued. “The sad part is how we torture ourselves as a kind of retribution. It’s pathetic, but we deprive ourselves of sleep thinking we don’t deserve it. Rest is the only thing we desire, but we won’t let ourselves have any. We can’t close our eyes without seeing how we hurt the ones we loved. The few hours we do spend in bed are a restless coma. And when we wake, it’s in a screaming sweat.”

  I took another step. I was getting close to him now. He looked too furious to speak. There was moisture in his eyes.

  “Do you feel sick all the time, David? Is there a knot in your stomach that just won’t go away? I know that knot. Deep in the hardest part of your heart, you think that you deserve all this suffering. Because you killed her. You drove her to hell. And now you’re paying for your sins.”

  “You’re nothing like me,” he growled.

  “You’re right,” I said calmly. “I actually loved my wife.”

  With the reflexes of a cat, David backhanded me. Blood rushed to my right cheek. Anger bubbled up from somewhere deep inside. He was right. I looked at David and all I could see was how he was like me: the brokenness, the wallowed pity – the arrogant selfishness. I hated the man I saw. My hands balled into fists on their own, and punched the billionaire in the tooth.

  It felt good.

  No, it felt great.

  There was a hard crack and blood started to ooze from his nose. He staggered back, but I moved with him. I wanted to keep hitting him. His momentary disorientation gave me a chance to land a few free hits. But I ended up paying dearly for each one.

  David rebounded quickly. He was drunk. He probably hadn’t felt a thing.

  “Let me give you some advice, Jack,” he said putting his arms into a practiced position. “If you are going to punch a college boxing champ, make sure you knock him out with the first swing.”

  His attacks came hard and fast. I might have passed out for a second, because suddenly I was lying against the cold tile of the floor. My vision was dazed. I don’t know where his fist connected with my face, because my whole head suddenly hurt. The world around me hummed.

  As my vision slowly returned from the black, I realized he was talking.

  “– think you know me so well, but let me tell you the real story.”

  I scurried backwards and scrambled to my feet.

  “Never in my life have I started a day wanting to hurt someone I loved,” he said. “You can’t know what it’s like to be in full control of your emotions one moment and then snap…” He echoed the word with a snap of his fingers. “…it’s all gone.”

  Two jabs missed my fragile nose by a hair.

  “When you have gone as far as I have, the memories stick with you. They torture you. You want to die, but you wake up alive every morning anyway.”

  I wasn’t fighting back at this point. I was reacting. David gave me no opportunity to attack. He swung. I ducked. I felt the breeze of it run through my hair.

  “Eventually all the things you cling to for support lose their comfort. All the money and alcohol and women in the world can’t make you happy, so you move on. You clean up and keep living because you really don’t have any other choice. Eventually you begin to think about the shit you did a little less, and pretty soon you’ve all but forgotten about it.”

  I saw what I thought was an opening and swung for it. My punch landed, but David didn’t act like it. With the speed and form of an assembly line machine, he grabbed my arm, twisted it around, and elbowed me in the back of the head. I fell limply to the floor.

  “You even start to think that you can live a pretty good life,” he said.

  David knelt down and pulled my hair back so that my head tilted up towards his. He spoke in an angry whisper.

  “Then some little shit like you comes along, and you remember that all you really want to do is beat something to trash.”

  He made me scream. I couldn’t see his hands, but they felt like they were inside my stomach.

  He stood.

  “Get up.”

  I could only wheeze a response as my body involuntarily curled up.

  “Get up,” he screamed, towering over me.

  He kicked me in the face.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21