Save Her

Natalie - Chapter 3-2

“‘Just making sure,’ I said to him. He smiled, and Liv’s smile got way bigger. ‘I ran over you with two tires.’

“‘You’ll just need to try harder next time.’

“‘If you plan to fall out of more trees, let me know and I’ll bring a net? Or maybe a trampoline?’

“‘I’m getting a little less clumsy, but thanks. I’ve been practicing,’ he said, which obviously now I know means he was fragging more and getting used to it.”

“Fragging?” The interrogator asks.

“Teleporting. Same thing. Frag. Frag here, frag there. Short for fragment. Refrag is another thing I’d hear him say.”

The interrogator nods. She writes something. Natalie continues:

“So then — and oh my gosh this was the worst — Livia actually says: ‘So, Reginald, what’s an American boy like you doing in a place like this?’”

Natalie waits for it to register with the interrogator. After a few seconds the interrogator volunteers:

“How did you know Reginald’s name?”

“Exactly!” Natalie exclaims, giving the interrogator the small victory. “I cringed immediately because I knew it was a tremendous gaffe. Drayden reacted by snatching the book from her as quickly as I’ve ever seen anything move.

“‘Why did you call me that?’

“‘Whoops,’ Livia said.

“‘We’re sorry!’ I said. ‘We… we looked at your bank account.’

“‘What else?’

“‘Nothing,’ I told him. ‘Really, that’s it, and I’m so so sorry. We shouldn’t have.’

“His eyes darted from mine to Livia’s. He was looking for a lie. But I think he could tell I was truthful. He finally said: ‘That’s all you saw?’

“‘On my life, I swear,’ I said, and he seemed to believe me.

“‘Sorry to disappoint but I’m Drayden,’ he said as he turned to leave. Liv jumped in front of him. ‘Then who’s Reginald?’ She asked. ‘My brother,’ he said. Then to my surprise, I go: ‘How do we know that? You could be anybody.’ Liv says, ‘yeah you could be anybody!’ He put the brown little book in his front pocket as if ready to end this little charade. ‘No no no,’ Liv said, ‘you don’t just get to walk out of here. He’s you’re brother? Prove it.’

“‘I can’t,’ he says. ‘Wait,’ he pulls out his phone and shows us the picture on his home screen. It’s him and another guy. ‘That’s Reginald,’ Drayden said. ‘Me,’ he said, pointing to himself; ‘There you go.’

“‘That’s not exactly proof beyond a reasonable doubt,’ I said, proud of myself.

“‘You mean you’re not a millionaire?’ Livia said, not hiding her disappointment.

“‘I should probably go,’ he said to me, ignoring Livia’s question. ‘Thank you for keeping this safe.’

“Livia jumped in front of him again — God I love her. ‘If you’re really who you say you are, don’t you or your ‘brother’ think you owe her just a bit more than a ‘thank you’? That book isn’t super valuable to you?’

“‘It is,’ he said, and he stopped, and he looked at me.

“‘And you think anybody else would have kept that hidden like Natalie did? No, I don’t think so,’ Liv said.

“‘Liv!’ I said, trying to stop her. Then to him, I was like ‘No, you don’t have to, really there’s nothing—’ I started to say but then Livia elbowed me hard enough to shut me up and hurt my arm a little.

“‘What are you thinking?’ He said, looking to her and to me. I shook my head at her.

“‘Take her to breakfast. Simple coffee. Tea. Crumpets — lots of choices.’

“He looked right at me. He smiled. The more I saw it, the more handsome he got. ‘Sounds good to me,’ he said. ‘You in? Breakfast somewhere?’

“I love Livia. If only I could be so daring. Having a friend like her is so important because he totally would have taken off and then who knows. Had she not stepped up and insisted how she did… I mean his life was different already. Chaotic. Finding his brother’s killer and the nanos and the new abilities — he had never had so many distractions. If I were a betting person like he is, I would have put my money on him forgetting about me completely, I mean if Livia hadn’t stepped in.

“I nodded to him, and bit my lip, and tried to hide my embarrassed excitement.

“‘Go on now. Go go go,’ she said, nudging me gently into him and away from the dorm. ‘You kids be safe — and you know what I mean,’ she said, winking, clearly meaning s*x, which was just ridiculous. She knew I was a virgin and that any mention of anything related to the topic made me anxious.

“We walked away. I looked back once and when I did Livia started jumping up and down excitedly.”

“‘Coffee?’ He asked.

“‘Coffee sounds perfect. And you really don’t have to.’

“‘I want to,’ Drayden said. He looked at me, and I’m sure I blushed. ‘So this is Cambridge,’ he said, I think to break the silence.

“‘Cambridge area. Cambridge prep school is where I go. You? Shouldn’t you be in class somewhere?’

“‘Shouldn’t you?’ He smiled back at me.

“‘My parents will kill me if they find out,’ I said. ‘First time for me — this hookie thing.’ He looks at me incredulously. ‘Not for you?’

“‘Ha. No. Not my first,’ he said. ‘And far from my last.’

“‘Where exactly are you supposed to be right now?’ I asked.

“‘Exactly exactly? I should probably be in a computer science lab. I have a project due. But I’m not going to do it.’

“‘What kind of project?’

“‘The boring kind. The kind I already know how to do. Back engineering stuff. Reproducing something in code after extracting the data. Not hard.’

“‘Sounds hard.’

“‘Pretty easy.’

“‘But you’re not there. Fall out of another tree? Get hit by another car? Forgot to go to class?’

“‘I didn’t realize British women were so funny.’

“‘It’s more of a dry, repressed sarcasm, but thank you. Why not do the project? Because you’re a rebel?’

“‘You don’t want to hear that — it’s a boring story,’ he said.

“‘I’m sure it’s not.’ He considered not telling me. He looked at me, and I could see him thinking about whether to tell me. I raised my eyebrows to let him know I was waiting. ‘Let’s go now. Tell all.’

“‘Well, the short story is I’m very close to getting kicked out.’

“‘They can do that? What did you do?!’ I asked.

“‘It’s a university. Yeah, they can totally boot me.’

“‘University? You’re young! Oh, now you definitely have to tell me the long version.’ I felt like I was pushing too hard. I couldn’t believe how comfortable I was with him already. Usually, it takes a lot longer for me to relax in front of someone. You know what I mean.”

Natalie winks at the interrogator. The interrogator, to Natalie’s surprise, nods in agreement.

“‘Well, like I said, it’s a long story,’ he said just as we got to the nearest cafe. ‘Here good?’

“‘Uh huh, I like this place,’ I said to him. We went in, and both ordered coffee and sat down. I decided I was being too pushy. He was going to turn himself off completely, or worse, leave. So I stayed silent. I forced myself to keep my lips closed and not ask him any more about why he might get kicked out of school. I was sure that if I opened my mouth, then words would come out in the form of another question. Ha. So I kept it shut, and, believe me, it wasn’t at all easy. So, lots of seconds passed without either of us saying anything at all — like at least twenty seconds, which feels like an eternity when you don’t know somebody.

“‘I got kicked out of school because I hacked a computer system and got caught,’ he said. I stayed as silent as a church mouse even though my curiosity about him was making my fingers fidget and the chemicals in my brain to rush. I felt both comfortable and nervous around him, more nervous than I could remember feeling around any previous guy. He was young but strong, manly, broad-shouldered, and had eyes so piercing they drew me in and made me feel like I was the only one in his world. ‘I was helping a friend. The company I hacked are a bunch of assholes. Big HMO. They took advantage of my friend — really screwed him over — and that pissed me off. So I hacked their systems and made some of what I found public. They didn’t really like that very much.’

“Drayden’s voice is so bright and articulate. At first, I thought listening to him was so mesmerizing because I wasn’t used to having extended conversations with Americans. But after more talks it was clear it was all about him and his intelligence, his mannerisms, his addictive tractor-beam of a personality. He was the most appealing and interesting man I had ever met in my life.

“‘Your friend must be special,’ I said, because in my mind I was thinking it might be a female, and hoped it wasn’t someone like a girlfriend.

“‘He is. Best man I know,’ Drayden said. ‘He’s a doctor, or he used to be. One of my mom’s exes. Was contracted with a hospital in Palo Alto and had a patient who needed an expensive test that the hospital didn’t want to pay for. Oscar ordered the test anyway, they blackballed him because he didn’t listen to them, and then he went bankrupt. So I took the HMO down.”

The interrogator asks: “Did you ever meet Oscar?”

“Yeah, much later. Not too long ago as a matter of fact. Speaking of dates, what is today? There’s not a single calendar or clock around here and—”

“Don’t worry about it,” the interrogator cut her off. “Where is Oscar?”

“I’m really not sure. Drayden fragged me there. We just sort of — pow! — arrived at this small cottage in the woods somewhere high in the mountains.”

“What mountains?” The interrogator asks.

“Wyoming somewhere,” Natalie lies and hopes it’s not evident. Natalie can’t tell them where Oscar is. If they find Oscar, then they might find Drayden. Or, if they find Oscar, then they’ll kidnap him too and use him for leverage to capture Drayden.

“Why is he there?” The interrogator asks.

“I’m sure you know that Drayden funneled money from the HMO to an account for Oscar. That’s one of the main reasons he was in so much trouble. Anyway, Drayden used some of the cash to rent a place for Oscar until everything settled down. Oscar likes the mountains. A cabin in the woods seemed like a good idea.” Natalie shuts up because she has a tendency when she lies to embellish way too much. Natalie is the fancy liar who knows the details matter, but she also knows that the details can come back to bite her, especially here where the days are too long, and her questioner is too relentless with her questions for Natalie to keep up with all her own diversions. No matter what, she has to help keep Oscar hidden and safe. He was maybe the nicest man she had ever met in her life, with a heart so gentle and caring that it hurts her to think anyone could break him the way Drayden’s mother had, and then after that, the way the HMO had.

The interrogator seems to think about Natalie’s answer like she’s debating whether to doubt her out loud. Natalie waits and tries to read her. Natalie thinks she might be busted, which scares her because of the impending threat to Livia.

“What else can you tell me about Oscar?” The interrogator finally asks.

“Drayden told me his mother met Oscar at a coffeehouse and accepted his marriage proposal two weeks later. I know, right? Way too quick. And I know what you’re thinking, but Oscar’s really not the type to make that kind of mistake. He’s thoughtful. Strategic. Really smart. But I guess she caught him at the right time. Things like that happen. Good luck. Bad luck. Sometimes it’s just timing. Drayden thinks his mom charmed Oscar at a time with he was really lonely. Makes sense to me. Drayden said of all the men in her life, he was the only one she truly loved. And he told me that Oscar was the only dad-type he and Reginald actually loved. He said Oscar spent time with them — and was the only step-father who did — and said Oscar was always captivated by how easily each of them picked up on new things. Drayden told me that Oscar was the one who taught them each how to play chess, and how they had epic battles and tournaments amongst the three of them until they were consistently beating him, but only because he had taught them so much about opening positions, middle game strategies, and how to patiently finish the game. He had apparently been a highly ranked chess prodigy and wanted the same path for Drayden and Reginald, but their mother wouldn’t have any of it. She said they didn’t need that kind of distraction in their lives, that it was just a silly game, and said nobody accomplishes anything in life with a high chess ranking. Oscar tried to explain to her how talented they both were, but she shut him down. Since her sons loved the game so much, she permitted the tournaments in the garage she had classified as ‘silly,’ just so long as it never went beyond that.”