Allen Zadoff - Boy Nobody

I should be extremely careful with Mother now. I should back down, play timid, be apologetic.

I think of Sam’s lifeless body at my feet in the park.

Suddenly I am angry at Mother, at the assignments she doles out so casually and from a distance. I’m angry at myself for always doing what I’m told. Too angry for business as usual.

“This time it was necessary,” I say.

“Couldn’t you have finished the assignment without proof?” she says.

No anger in her voice. Only curiosity.

“If I had finished at the beginning, I would have turned in the wrong solution,” I say. “Even you have to acknowledge that. You changed the assignment in midcourse.”

“True,” she says. “But think it through. Puzzle it out.”

Puzzle It Out.

One of the games we played in the house when I was training.

Mother would raise a question that seemed to have an obvious solution. As soon as I had the answer, I’d shout it out, thinking I was brilliant.

Then Mother would take me deeper. Show me paths I couldn’t see on my own.

Puzzle It Out.

“The original assignment,” Mother says. “Didn’t you have the solution at the very beginning?”

The mayor. He was my original target, and I was in his office on day one.

I say, “If I’d finished the assignment that first day, I would have been making a mistake.”

Because the mayor was not guilty of anything more than loving his daughter, perhaps giving her too much leeway. I would have killed an innocent person.

The Program made the mistake, not me.

It was my investigation that revealed the guilty party.

Unless—

I take a moment to puzzle it out.

If I had removed the mayor, there would have been no need for the PM to visit.

No meeting at Gracie.

Nothing for Gideon to accomplish.

And Sam?

With her father dead, she would have been neutralized, her access to information gone. There would have been no target adjustment. Sam would still be alive, and the mayor would be dead.

And the problem, such as it was, would be gone.

If I’d acted on that first day, it would have been over. Quickly and easily.

So I took the wrong path.

“It’s because you waited that new information was revealed,” Mother says. “That’s why we had to adjust the assignment. If you had acted, there would have been no need.”

Like she’s in my head. Like she’s always been there, ten steps ahead of me, plotting.

“Your old mom is not so stupid,” she says. “Maybe you’ll trust her the next time she tells you what to do.”

Ten steps ahead, but not all-seeing. Because how did I get the proof?

She hasn’t asked me about it. Which means she doesn’t know about Howard.

Not yet.

She may or may not know that Mike gave me a second chance.

And what Mike told me about my father?

“You said that after I was finished we could talk about my coming home.”

“I did say that.”

“I’d like to see you and Dad.”

“We’d like to see you, too. But with the move going on, it’s not the right time.”

“You’re moving?” I say.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Could you make some time for me?”

“I’m sorry, honey. Our hands are tied,” she says.

Tied.

I think of myself taped to a chair in a dark warehouse, Mike looming over me.

Sent by Mother.

I think of my father taped to a chair in our living room, a trickle of blood running down his face. Mike stands over him.

Sent by Mother.

“There’s a lot more we need to talk about,” I say.

“Oh, yes,” Mother says. “We will.”

I hear her typing on a keyboard in the background. Is she writing a report about what happened here? Putting everything in neat boxes?

Maybe this was just another assignment to her, another task checked off the list. An operative deviated slightly from the plan, but he’s back now.

Zach Abram is back in the family.

Mission accomplished.

She says, “By the way, keep your eye out for an e-mail. Your father is sending you something.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” I say. “I have to go now, Mom. There’s a lot to do before I leave.”

“Love you,” she says.

I start to speak, but I cannot. My throat is dry.

I take a breath. I swallow. And I stick to the script.

“Love you. Talk to you soon,” I say.

I end the call.

“I KNEW YOU’D COME,” HOWARD SAYS.

I stand in his bedroom doorway.

The apartment is empty, his parents gone. That will only make my job easier.

On the desk monitors behind him, windows are open to dozens of different news sources. Sam’s death and the aftermath from every angle and perspective.

“Were you there when Sam…

His voice trails off.

“I didn’t see her,” I lie. “But I know she didn’t suffer.”

That part is the truth.

Howard starts to cry. “Did I have anything to do with it?”

“You tried to prevent it. We both did.”

“Is that what we were doing?”

“Yes.”

That seems to calm him.

“She was always nice to me,” he says.

“She wasn’t who she seemed to be,” I say.

“Are any of us?”

The monitors behind him go to screen saver. Goji’s avatar floats in a starry sky, her eyes massive and glowing bright. Her face travels on a journey from one monitor to the next.

Howard says, “Some columnist at the Daily News said the mayor should run for president in the next election. Can you believe it? They’re already using this for politics.”

“I imagine there will be a lot of that in the days to come.”

Howard sniffles, wiping his nose with his sleeve. After a minute, he pulls himself together.

“I want to show you something,” he says. “I did some more work for you.”

He flicks the mouse, and one of his screens turns on. Long lists of numbers that I can’t understand.

“What am I looking at?”

“When I was working for you, I kept running across trails. Everywhere I went—the blog, the mayor’s schedule—someone had already been there.”

“The Israelis were involved. Was it them?”

“I don’t think so. These were hackers. This one kid in particular. Infinite is his name.”

“Infinite?”

“That’s his handle. Infinite L∞P. With an infinity sign instead of letters, like that means something.”

“How do you know about him?”

“He’s a twelve-year-old dickwad, that’s how. He thinks he’s a genius, and I can’t totally disagree with him, given the things he can do. But he’s arrogant, so he doesn’t clean up after himself. There’s a vapor trail that I followed to Spotify. He listens to Katy Perry. Does that sound like a genius to you?”

“You’re saying there’s a little kid who’s a hacker?”

“Not just one. A whole bunch of them, all in different cities. I thought you’d know about them. Because of your job.”

“I don’t know.”

But maybe The Program does. I imagine kids implanted all over the country, doing the tech work for The Program while I do the wet work.

“So you’ve been looking around online,” I say.

“I was trying to help you,” he says.

There are seven steps between us. I use two of them.

“I covered my tracks,” Howard says, fear creeping into his voice.

“You did your best. I’m not saying you didn’t.”

I take another step.

“I know I’m a loose end,” he says.

A loose end. He’s right. That’s why I’ve come. To clean up loose ends.

I take another step toward him. He lowers his head and stares at the ground.

“Kill me if you want,” he says. “You’d be doing me a favor.”