Minders

CHAPTER 6

Sadie 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?”

Ford put his finger to his lips. In one swift motion he dropped into a push-up position and peered under the bed.

“Still no monsters,” he reported, standing back up. “No way they could have hidden that fast. You’re safe.”

Lulu held up two dolls that appeared to be from the dollhouse and said, “Kiss Bless and Noshe good night.”

Ford grabbed one of them and pretended to start making out with her, causing Lulu to squeal with laughter, then dropped the dolls and reached for her, and she squealed even more. Sadie tried to imagine what it would be like to have someone who made your mind relax the way Lulu made Ford’s.

He gave his sister a soppy kiss on the forehead and was at the door when she spoke.

“How come when Cali says ‘I love you’ you don’t say it back?”

He stopped on the threshold and turned to face her, his mind staying even and unaffected. “I do.”

“No you don’t,” Lulu told him. “You say ‘you too’ or ‘me too’ or ‘uh-huh.’”

Ford laughed and turned back toward the door. “Agree to disagree.”

Lulu narrowed her eyes. “That’s my line. You can’t just take it.”

He pantomimed catching something in his fist midair, grinned, said, “Too late,” and shut the door.

Cali’s bare legs over the top of the couch, one ankle crossed over the other, were the first thing he noticed walking down the hall toward the living room, and the reaction in his body was immediate. Sadie felt his lower abdomen tighten and heard something that sounded almost like music in his head.

“I hope you don’t mind, I made myself comfortable,” Cali said.

He slid onto the couch next to her, his arm coming around to rest conveniently on her breast, his crotch against her leg. “You look like you might still be a little uncomfortable. Maybe you should get out of your shorts.”

Cali laughed. “I was thinking, on Friday you could wear the blue checked shirt. You know, the one you were wearing the first time we met.”

“Mmmm?” His lips roamed over the smooth skin along the base of Cali’s neck, and tiny clusters of sound and color broke loose in various parts of his mind, like dandelion seeds being blown free in a breeze, a momentary poof and then gone.

During training Sadie had resolved to use any intimate time her Subject had to review her findings and take down new data, but now she found herself unable to break away. She felt the tension building inside of him as though it were inside of her, each trill and riff adding another layer. It was like having butterfly wings tease over her skin, making it tingle and prickle in the most exquisite and exquisitely distracting way. She let herself slip into it, willingly, even gratefully, breathless to find out what happened next—

From very far away a voice said, “You know, the one you wore on our first date.”

It had happened again, she realized—a world of experience in the space of a heartbeat. The music in his head stopped, the tickling evaporated, and Ford blinked his eyes open, saying, “Friday? What’s happening Friday?”

Dinner with her friends, Sadie volunteered. Remember when you were too stubborn to ask what she was talking about? I guess we know who is the best now.

Cali laughed and shimmied up him, setting off a momentary tinkling of bells. “Silly. Going out with Georgia and Clinton. We have a reservation at Trattoria Olivio.”

The tightness in Ford’s lower abdomen shifted from pleasure to something more like pressure. “Sorry, babe, I have another commitment.” Sadie didn’t need the feeling of the lights suddenly dimming to know he was lying. Why do that? Why not just say “I don’t want to go”?

Cali’s perfectly arced brows came together in a frown. “You told me you were free all weekend. You just said Friday was just fine.”

“To see you,” Ford answered. “You didn’t tell me about Trattoria Olivio. You know I don’t like going to those frou-frou places.” His mind filled with pointillist images of bread sticks, a carafe of wine wrapped in straw, salad—

“How would you know you don’t like it if you’ve never been?” Cali asked.

Ford said, “It just seems stupid.”

It didn’t seem stupid when you were picturing it just now, Sadie observed. Why would you say something so intentionally antagonistic?

Cali pulled as far from him on the couch as she could. “Do you care about me? Love me? Because if you want to end this, you should do it now. It’s not fair to drag it out.”

Ford sat up, the noise in his head spiking with surprise. “Whoa, where is this coming from? Because I don’t want to pay forty dollars for some crappy Italian food?”

Cali took a deep breath and, like someone jumping off the high dive, said, “I got a new job.”

Ford sat up even straighter. “A new job? You mean a promotion?”

“No. A whole new job.” Another deep breath for courage. “I started interviewing in April, and I found out I got it on Friday.”

“April?” Ford repeated incredulously. “You kept this from me for two months?” Sadie caught a whiff of the same bleachy scent she’d noticed at the Castle. Only she’d been wrong; there hadn’t been a cleaning crew, it was inside Ford’s head.

“I was afraid of how you’d take it,” Cali said.

“How should I take it?” Ford demanded. “I thought we were a couple. Now you tell me you’ve been looking for new jobs behind my back.” The smell of bleach got stronger. “What else have you been lying about?”

“I didn’t lie.” Cali reached for him, but he pulled away from her hand, turning his back. From behind him she said, “The job is with CitCent Neighborhood Bank. I’ll be an executive assistant to one of the bankers. It’s a great opportunity, Ford. More money, more responsibility, chances for promotion. It’s a career, the way I always said I wanted. We’ll be able to get a place together, like Georgia and Clinton.”

Say congratulations, Sadie urged. Tell her that’s great news and you’re excited for her.

Ford’s mind flashed back to the imagined dinner scene with Georgia and Clinton, the dots forming pictures of dessert, tiny cups of coffee, the final bill. His wallet with the two dollars in it. It brought with it a rush of the same sticky, dirty sensation Sadie had noticed at the Castle.

He turned to face Cali and said, “You know what they call executive assistants? Work mistresses. They’ll screw you but they won’t promote you.”

Or you could say that.

Cali’s lower lip was trembling. “Ford, don’t act this way.”

“I’m just telling you the truth. Would you rather I lied to you and said you were off to a great start, your future looks bright?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m not comfortable lying to the people I love.”

Seriously, Mr. Ice? You’re not comfortable lying? Careful you don’t slip and lose your tenuous hold on the moral high ground.

“I’d hoped you could be happy for me and not need to lie.” Cali sighed. “But I guess I already knew that’s not how it would go.”

Ford blinked, and dots of brown, yellow, magenta, blue, and beige formed a very faint elevator carrying Cali dressed like Kansas had been that day, surrounded by men in business suits with bulging wallets eyeing her cleavage. “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.”

He’s deliberately provoking her, Sadie realized. As if he wanted to fight, wanted to make it escalate.

“You’re twisting everything around,” Cali whimpered.

“I’m just listening to you. Isn’t that what you want? And you know what, babe? You’re right. You deserve better than me.”

That’s a neat magic trick, Sadie thought. Turning from the person in the wrong into the person who was wronged. What’s next? Pulling a rabbit out of a hat?

“I don’t want better, I want you,” Cali said, falling for the trick. “I just want you to be happy. You used to be, but now—it seems like you never are.”

“I’m sorry I’m not happy, Cali,” he said. “It’s just that my brother is dead and my girlfriend is a liar.”

Cali’s mouth made an O, and she froze like she’d been stabbed in the stomach. Oh, I see. Your next trick is cutting the woman in half.

The tears started down Cali’s cheeks, streaking her mascara, and she didn’t even lift a hand to smooth them away. “I’m gonna go.”

Followed by making her disappear.

At the door, Cali faced him. “Is this—are we—?”

“I’ll be in touch,” he said, half closing his eyes. “Soon.”

I’ll be in touch. Sadie heard the echo of Pete’s words the night before, and worked to push it away. The point of this fellowship was to experience someone else’s life, not her own.

Besides, Pete had called and apologized that morning—god, was it only that morning?—saying he was sorry, it was just that he was going to miss her so much. Everything between them was fine now.

But everything was not fine between her and Ford. Sadie wanted to shake him and ask what kind of person acted the way he did. Couldn’t he see how much Cali cared about him? Why would he try to tear her down rather than be happy for her? Keep their fight going instead of ending it? Worse, there was something cool and calculated about it, as though he was pushing Cali away so she’d have to work even harder to stay with him.

Humiliation, Sadie realized. That was what the sticky sensation was. He’d felt humiliated that he couldn’t pay for dinner, but instead of admitting it, he’d tried to humiliate Cali by making her new job sound tawdry. Like something she should be ashamed of. How immat—

Stay objective, Sadie reminded herself. Record, don’t judge. She added humiliation—sticky, unpleasant, dirty—after anger—heavy, dark, suffocating, restless—in her mental notebook, and then in a separate section wrote bleach—?.

So far, Ford Winter’s mind was living up to the darkness she’d seen in his eyes.

Sadie expected he’d go to his bedroom now—she imagined something decorated in dirty gym socks—but instead he went to the trunk that acted as a coffee table, pulled out a pillow and a blanket that had been shoved in there, and tossed them on the couch. He did it without triggering any change in his mind, making Sadie think this was where he regularly spent the night.

So what’s behind the other door off the hallway? As though he’d heard her question, he went to it, took a deep breath, and pushed it open.

The air in the room was so thick with smoke that the bedside light made a golden halo. It was Spartan, more like a cell than a room, with only a dresser, a mirror, a night table, a light, and a bed.

A frail woman lay on the bed, above the covers. She wore a faded red housecoat that looked garish against her pale skin. There was a word jumble book on the bedspread next to her, an overflowing ashtray on the night table beside the lamp, and a picture in a silver frame resting in the hollow of her chest. A beige uniform dress with a white collar and a nametag that said VERA WINTER—WELCOME TO WAFFLE CITY lay draped haphazardly along the foot of the bed.

His mother, Sadie thought.

Ford stood looking at her for a moment before approaching. His mind was full of a busy emptiness, as though all his thoughts, emotions, and memories had hidden themselves like animals sheltering from a predator in tall grass.

“James?” the woman whispered. Her arm hung off the bed, and a burnt-down cigarette dangled from between her first two fingers. They were red and blistered, and there were dark burn spots on the rug beneath her hand.

Ford took the cigarette from her and balanced it on top of the pile in the ashtray. “No, Mom. It’s Ford.”

“Where’s James?”

Sadie expected a flood of heavy anger, but Ford’s voice was calm. He lifted the photo off her chest and put it on the nightstand without glancing at it. “James isn’t here.”

“When will he be back?” the woman asked.

Ford said, “He won’t. He’s gone.”

His mother’s eyes came open. “I thought maybe that was a dream. That he was alive and you”—she paused—“were him.”

The Ford Sadie had seen with Cali would have been ready with a scathing retort. Instead she had the sensation of someone leaning into a door, using their weight to keep it closed.

Sadie realized this had been going on in the background of Ford’s mind all night, even when he was with Cali, the effort increasing incrementally until she only now became aware of it. As though whatever was behind the door was always hovering beneath the surface, trying to get out. Ford said evenly, “That would be nice.”

His mother slid out of bed, went to the dresser, and began arranging the few objects on it—brush, comb, box, lipstick—moving them around one another nervously. “I tried to go to work today, but—” Her voice trailed off. Ford settled on the edge of her bed, but she remained standing, keeping her back to him as she said, “I was thinking tomorrow you could go see your father.”

In Ford’s mind very faint blue and green and gray dots sifted themselves into a dozen grainy pictures of a man, one superimposed upon another, creating a monstrous tableau. They were all different, but they were all sneering, and as Sadie watched, a fist punched through all of them, scattering the images into a red spray of blood.

Sadie felt the door in his mind jostle, and Ford leaning harder into it. “Why? Do you want me to end up in jail?”

His mother ignored that. “He hasn’t sent a check in a few months, and with me missing work we need the money.”

“I’ve been covering it,” Ford told her. “You said you were going to talk to the Roaches about Dad.”

“Don’t call them that. It’s disrespectful.”

“Fine. You said you were going to tell the Roque Community Health Evaluator about Dad not paying.”

She lined up the box with the brush and comb. “I didn’t want to bother her.”

Sadie felt the door starting to open and Ford struggling to push it back. “Mom, that’s what she’s for.”

Mrs. Winter turned around, agitated eyes seeking his. “Don’t you see we can’t have them know? If they knew that we had no money, if they knew he was behind—”

“If I get in trouble, if we miss our RCHE appointments, if we do anything to draw attention to ourselves, including ask for help we deserve, or request to see the file on James’s death, or ask why they’ve refused our requests to see the file, they could split the family apart,” Ford finished, as though reciting the end of a familiar fairy tale. “We all have to behave like good little boys and girls and not upset Father.”

His mother’s hand whipped out, and she slapped him. “Stop it! This isn’t a joke. This is our family.”

Sadie caught a whiff of bleach, but the pain barely registered in Ford’s mind. “You know James didn’t die the way they say he did. Don’t you want to learn the truth?”

“The case is closed,” said Mrs. Winter, trembling. “It’s closed.” Her tone was a plea, and her eyes looked afraid, but whether she was afraid for Ford or afraid of him, Sadie couldn’t tell.

They were less than a foot apart, mother and son, but loneliness yawned between them. Ford was completely still, as though all his energy was concentrated on keeping whatever was behind the door at bay. Only his eyes moved, sliding to the photo on the night table, allowing Sadie to see it.

It had been taken at Ford’s high school graduation, him in a cap and gown, standing next to the same blond guy Sadie had seen before in his mind being kissed by the mysterious woman with the dark hair. James.

In the photo Mrs. Winter stood between Ford and James in a pantsuit, thin but robust, nothing like the wisp of a woman in front of him now. Lulu held her hand and part of James’s sleeve and grinned adoringly up at her brothers. He and James were looking at one another, Ford making a goofy face, both laughing, as if they’d just shared a hilarious joke.

They were hardly recognizable as the same family. With a shock she noted the date stamp on the bottom corner of the photo. It had been taken only a year earlier.

“I miss him,” his mother said, following Ford’s eyes to the picture.

Sadie felt hot flares starting to slip through the cracks in Ford’s mental door and realized the emotion it was holding back was anger. It was anger that hovered beneath everything in his mind, pressing forward, restless, eager. And his desire or ability to contain it was weakening.

“Everyone loved James. He was such a good boy. So full of life,” Mrs. Winter went on.

“He sure was.” Ford stood, his mind noisy with the effort of holding the door closed. “You fell asleep smoking again, Mom. If you keep it up you’ll set the house on fire and kill us all.”

“You worry too much,” his mother answered.

They spoke the words like actors delivering well-worn lines, and Sadie imagined them having this same conversation a dozen, two dozen times before. For a moment they stood still in their poses, each waiting to see if the other wanted to finish the scene.

Then Ford pivoted and went back to the living room. He didn’t say good night or sleep well or any of the things Sadie always said to her parents, and his mother didn’t call them after him. It was as if they didn’t know how to talk to one another if they weren’t fighting. Was that why he’d purposely goaded Cali too, because conflict was more comfortable to him than affection?

Unhooking his belt, he dropped his jeans and stepped out of them.

You’re not really going to leave them on the floor like a pile of—

He took two steps to the couch, stretched out, and turned off the light.

You are, Sadie marveled. Well, that makes sense. Because operating drawers is such a challenge.

His eyes closed, and the anger settled in like a lapdog finding its accustomed bed. His mind went quiet except for a regular, low thrumming. His heart, Sadie realized, feeling an unexpected flash of intimacy.

I am still very displeased, she reminded herself.

Sadie was prepared to be wide awake even after he fell asleep—they’d been told at orientation that the advanced stimulation of their brains might make sleep elusive the first few days even if they were tired—and had intended to use the time to go over her observations from the day. But her thoughts kept returning to the photo from Ford’s graduation of the Winter family, happy and full of hope. Losing James had shattered them in a way that seemed to go beyond mere grief.

How did James die? she wondered. Who is Ford so angry at?

As she drifted off to sleep, lulled by the sound of his heartbeat, she saw a faint image of a skein of golden rope curling slowly downward, and had the strangest idea that if she could just grab it she’d have her answer.