Streams of Babel

  I reached over and turned up my music so my mom wouldn't catch any stray words, and I made sure it was my most irritating hip-hop, to get even with these ancient crows. Hamdani finally stopped arguing with Hodji, and the man just picked up in our conversation like he'd been listening all along. I heard intelligence agents could be trained to do that—hear like three conversations at once.

  "Listen, Tyler. Susan, Michael, me, we've all got kids your age. We know you're plenty smart. We also know most of you don't have the fear factor yet."

  "What's the fear factor?" I asked. I knew fear. At least, I knew what it was like to walk into my school every morning at eight and know I could have my face kicked in at any moment. I don't suppose these guys walked into their offices feeling like that.

  "Fear factor is when you hit a certain age, or you have an experience that is highly traumatic, and you say to yourself, 'I could be dead tomorrow. Or the next day. I really don't know what the stars have in store, but I ought to live my life carefully, every day, no matter what.' That's the fear factor. Shahzad has it. Unfortunately, sixteen is far from old enough to work for us. We, uh, thought he was eighteen. But I understand that you are seventeen. I watched your tapes from the police station today, and you are nowhere close to having the fear factor. In fact, I'd almost say you're on a suicide mission."

  I opened my mouth to argue, but there was no argument. I just smiled. Touché.

  "These are not the guys to meet on your first intelligence gig," Michael said. "But I'll tell you what. If you can get yourself in a better frame of mind, Tyler, and give me your word that you will have no further contact with these men, I'll give you a recommendation as soon as you turn eighteen. You could get paid internships, paid college, and solid work as a media consultant until you're twenty-one. You're both extraordinarily talented, and god knows the Coalition could use that talent. I can almost guarantee you both a job, if you promise to lay off these dangerous men, leave them entirely alone, and don't make any further attempts at intelligence freelancing or curiosity mongering. None at all"

  The silence was long. It was such a tremendous leap from Miss Susan berating my personality type in the cop station that I wanted to give them my word on the spot. I would be eighteen in ten months, and to work for the Coalition as an adult would more than compensate for my rotten childhood. Still, watching Hamdani squirm was not easy. They were asking him to take time off for two years. Two years. It would be like asking him to go to jail for two years. I mean, what is school, except that the inmates don't wear orange?

  For his sake I reminded them, "We just gave you the contents of Red Vinegar, the source of Red Vinegar, the recipe for Red Vinegar, and all but the very class that Omar teaches, which, by the way, is at Astor College. And still. You're saying there's nothing you can do with Hamdani except ignore him for two years."

  Hodji slumped until his chin bobbed to his chest in dejection. Miss Susan said, "There is absolutely nothing we can do with minors. But do you want a job for the future, Tyler? I know I said some pretty unkind things to you today. But I take them all back. You're an amazing programmer."

  Of course it crossed my mind that they could be lying—just trying to get me to stay out of their business. And I could apply to USIC at eighteen and get a letter similar to the one I got from Trinitron: No thanks, no explanation.

  I glanced at Hamdani. "Is she telling the truth?"

  I wondered if she was the one who figured out he was too young and blew the whistle. It was that kind of a betrayed and hateful look he gave her. But then he turned to Hodji. Hodji looked at me and said, "She's telling the truth."

  And Shahzad added, "Hodji never lied to me, and he would not lie to you."

  I couldn't pick out a lie in any face. So we shook hands all around, and USIC stood up.

  "I'll make you another deal," Michael said. "We won't bust you for hacking, and we won't report you to the FBI. But we want your cell-scanning program moved to disk. Moved—not copied. It's illegal to use it."

  I had several disk copies, and I suppose they knew that. But I went along with it, gave them a disk, and tried to tell myself to behave—forevermore. I was sorry to watch them leave with Hamdani. I guess they were dropping him at home. No point in leaving him with me. We might be tempted to break our word.

  I looked at the article pinned to my bulletin board over my bed. If anyone had noticed it, they hadn't let on. "'The Kid is such a proficient v-spy that he could turn any day of the week into Christmas for American intelligence,' said an unnamed source."

  I lay down on my bed and wondered if Mr. Cowboy Hodji was the unnamed source. There was a knock at my door. I glanced quickly to my terminal. The screen saver was on. I wouldn't have to scalp my mother unless she came in, which she never did.

  "What's up, Mom?"

  She opened the door with her usual foot. "Those fix-it guys leave already?"

  "They took the hard drive with them," I lied. "Could be complicated."

  "Do you need my credit card?"

  "I will when I pick it up, probably in a few days. Don't worry about it now."

  I could see it disappear from her mind in one blink. "I'm ordering," she said. "What's your pleasure? Pizza, hoagies, or Chinese?"

  I tried to remember which of The Three we had last night. I was too busy watching her. My mother was probably the most graceful grown woman I have ever laid eyes on. She's got almond-shaped eyes, but not exaggerated almond, because her mother was German. They're hazel but can look totally green in certain lights. Whatever stress she carries doesn't show up on her face, and it hasn't given her shiny brown hair a single gray strand. She looks mature enough to be sharp and responsible, and young enough not to be worn down. She's tall, taking after her father, who was Samoan. We're not actually North Korean; she and I were both born in Samoa. She met the North Koreans when she went to graduate school in South Korea just after I was born. I've put that much together.

  "I don't care, I'm not hungry," I told her.

  "How about a salad?" she suggested. "They make yummy ones at—"

  "Why don't you take me out for once?"

  She smiled, more genuinely than I would have predicted. "I will. I promise. If it's any consolation, I think every day that I should take my son out. He's the only son I've got!"

  "How about we set a date?"

  "Okay, let's do that," she agreed, and I didn't read any fakeness in her face. Is this my lucky day? USIC is offering me a job in a year, and my mother agrees to take me out to dinner soon.

  "What night?" I asked.

  "Any night. You pick it. Just not tonight. I've brought home too much work."

  She pulled the door shut, and I guess she will choose between the Big Three for tonight all by herself. The word "work" echoed in the air. I shut my eyes and let my breath roll out, because I suddenly felt sick. The realization struck me that should have struck me right away, if I hadn't been too excited about my own life to remember hers.

  I can't work for USIC. I can't ever work in intelligence. What was I thinking?

  I suppose USIC isn't as quick as other intelligence agencies on grilling their employees, but it's inevitable that they get around to it. The background checks for all intelligence agencies are murder. They include a polygraph. I reflected again on how that needle would go off the charts when they asked, "Is your mother a lab technician at KTD BioLabs in Newark?" Even if I managed to pass a polygraph, they would find out about her. No one would ever believe I was against the whole thing—unless I turned her in, which I simply could not ever do. Not ever.

  I was as totally fucked as I ever was. I reached in my night-stand, fumbling around for a Valium. I didn't need food—I needed a nice, long nap, where the world and all its woes couldn't bother me for about nine hours.

  FORTY

  RAIN STECKERMAN

  SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2002

  2:15 A.M.

  I TOTALLY CAN'T think, so I'm lying here crying. The nurses are already used to it, and over
an hour ago, they quit sticking their heads in the door to say comforting things, or "Get some sleep."

  Owen is asleep with the curtain open, so I can see him and be glad he's out of it, though it is hard. If he were awake, I could motormouth and not think about Cora and Scott and how much my ear hurts. Although my ear hardly hurts, actually. I can't decide if it hurts because I'm thinking about it, or if I'm thinking about it because it hurts. Anyway, it couldn't hurt too much or I wouldn't have that question. It hurt a lot, but then Dr. Godfrey said it was just an ulcer and not a whole aneurysm (it was actually my ear bleeding and not my brain), and I feel like a dumb jerk face for not being ecstatic about that. Actually my stomach hurts worse than my ear, from the silent-sobs routine. I don't want to wake Owen. My stomach hurts, and my teeth. I keep grinding my teeth together.

  My thoughts keep landing on the worst memory of my life. Hildy Kirkegard was this inordinately huge chick, like, five-seven, one eighty in sixth grade. Every class has its token bully. In my class, the bully was a girl. Hildy said it a thousand times: "Do that again, I'll kick your butt." "Watch out, I'll kick your butt." She took a karate class, and anyone who had the nerve would whisper that she looked like a sumo wrestler and not a karate expert, but you could never let her hear you say that, or she would "kick your teeth down your throat" or "chew off your left ear and shove it up your right nostril." Psychobabe.

  One day Owen and Dobbins and I were throwing a football at lunchtime. I threw a long pass to Dobbins that was way off and knocked Hildy's hat from her head. It was a total accident, but she started in from like forty feet away.

  "What the hell was that, Steckerman? You did that on purpose! You're dead!"

  And she came stalking toward me. The whole world fuzzed over until there was no one in it except me and this mastodon, huffing and snorting and coming fast. My thought was ... I'm gonna pee my pants. Unless—

  Instead of running away, I ran at her, and I jumped on her and sunk my teeth into her scalp. All this pent-up outrage at having to be scared all year shot out like a geyser. Before Owen finally pulled me off, I had given her a broken jaw and four loose molars, and I spit hair out of my mouth for days.

  It wasn't until after Hildy was taken away in an ambulance that I had this dawning revelation: I had never seen her kick anyone's butt, and neither had anyone else in the class. It had all been flap jaw, and then, I had to listen to my dad for two weeks while he enforced my grounding to the max.

  Mr. Even Keel says that people who hate are usually reflecting how they've been made to feel, and the best thing to do with a school bully is to be nice to them. It catches them off guard, and they don't know what to do.

  I've spent my life since then being nice to people who are mean. Because I feel that same snatch of outrage coming over me, and if I don't spout out something nice, I get terrified. I know what anger can turn me into.

  I had Mr. Kinnard's sophomore psych class, and he went on one day about your "fight or flight" mode. He said, "Most people choose 'flight' when they're terrified, but some people will choose 'fight.'"

  I should say I've spent my life being nice to meanies until now. Now I don't have any bullies to be nice to. I don't know who did this. When I try to imagine a face, the only one I see is Hildy Kirkegard's.

  So, I'm watching Owen sleep. He doesn't snore. I am kind of glad of that, though you might think it shouldn't matter to me one way or the other whether Owen snores. I mean, we're not an item. Never have been.

  But it's always been this secret thought of mine, the one I never share with anybody, that I am saving Owen for when I get married. He's the type who would make a terrible boyfriend (too boring), but a great husband. He wouldn't want to have Boys' Night Out every weekend or go trout fishing with a bunch of drunken potheads every Saturday. Besides, he told me he is a virgin, and I just pretended I didn't care and all, but secretly I was all Yah Sheenah! Some people think that shagging a virgin is just a guy thing, but I don't think so, or maybe I'm just weird. I think it would be very cool to marry a virgin.

  I wonder if that makes me more of a feminist or less of a feminist.

  When I get out of college and have my job, and I'm ready to be old and start staying at home nights, that's when I'll make my move on Owen. It's all between me, myself, and I until then.

  Until then. Until then. "Until" is just a word I've said a gazillion times. Until I play a sport in college. Until I get my first real job. Until I find out if I can room with Jeanine Fitzpatrick up at Montclair State University or I have to room with a stranger. Until is a word that links the present with the future. A transitional word. (See? I'm not so dumb. Some people think I'm dumb, but it's not true. I just don't try to be overly smart.)

  But after being brought here from the emergency room last night, I realized how any time this week I used the word "until" it was like I had dropped the f-bomb. I have to be very riled up to drop the f-bomb, and for some reason it makes me strangely nervous or anxious when I do. This week, the word until has gotten me feeling that way.

  It used to be that nothing existed between the here and now and until, except time. I'm starting to see what it's like for people who have challenges, like those who are in wheelchairs or have cancer, or who have Lyme disease and walk funny because their joints hurt. They have to think of all sorts of things when until spills out of their mouths, like the fact that until might be very hard to accomplish, or that until might never get here.

  It's so much easier to think of others than me. It's probably that old psychological twitch: Like, I'm wishing Hildy Kirkegard was the biggest thing I had to worry about.

  Owen told me something terrifying tonight, just after we found out that Scott passed out in intensive care. We don't know what happened, only that he passed out, and the nurses said everyone is working on figuring out why. But it inspired Owen to tell me this secret thing he saw outside Cora's house after I was admitted last night. The doctors told him he would be admitted, too, but since he felt basically okay, they let him go home first.

  He packed some clothes, and some football mags and books to read, then walked back to Cora's for his toothbrush. There was a crowd of men out on the sidewalk and he realized it was my dad and strange people he'd never seen before. He assumed it was the USIC crew that had been holed up in our house. But they weren't dressed in business suits. They were in jeans and flannel shirts, though he saw a gun in a holster, and maybe that's when he thought USIC.

  They had shovels and a couple of flashlights, and they'd been digging—right around that puddle outside Cora's house. He hid to watch, and suddenly they stopped digging and all froze. There had been something buried there, and one guy shone a flashlight on it. Owen said it was a muddy red box about the size of a suitcase. The guy said something he couldn't hear.

  He said the guy turned and looked at my dad. And my dad started to yell wildly—to yell and curse and kick dirt—and it was all unbelievable, because neither of us have ever seen my dad curse or kick anything. And then he fell down on the ground and started to cry ... cry and say my name, and curse and say my name.

  I try getting a picture of this in my head, and all I can come up with is the image of Hildy Kirkegard.

  Owen can't keep a secret for the life of him. And after telling me, and after me pretending the story didn't terrify me so it wouldn't terrify him, he promptly fell asleep and left me awake. Don't ask why I want to marry this guy. I can't answer that.

  FORTY-ONE

  SHAHZAD HAMDANI

  SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 2002

  9:45 A.M.

  TYLER KNOCKS AT Aunt Alika's door on Saturday morning, and I let him in. I try not to look unhappy, but his arrival adds much complication.

  My aunt and Inas are still upset with me for cutting the school. Inas still thinks that I know Tyler only as the boy who spoke to me in the lunch line. Neither my aunt nor Inas know I am fired from my job at Trinitron, not that they ever knew I was a USIC employee in the first place. My aunt thinks of me as "h
igh maintenance," the word she used three times last night when she heard that the school called to say I was missing. I reminded her that it is not a law to go to school in Pakistan after age thirteen and said simply that I had become confused. I had wanted to go to work at Trinitron instead.

  Beyond the complications with my relatives, Hodji and I had a huge fight over Tyler while driving from his house last night.

  Once we were in his car, he changed his tune quickly, telling me to stay away from Tyler at all costs. He said that he can detect a drug taker from miles away, and that Tyler is one, and that he seems haunted by something, perhaps a molestation or abuse. I said such things are not a person's fault and he was being unfair. Hodji said that I sounded awfully American for only having been in school for one full day.

  But from all this, I gathered they were not expecting to hire Tyler in a year. Hodji finally came clean with many grumbles, his excuse for lying being that they would say anything to keep a minor away from dangerous men who could hurt him. And besides, Tyler is too strange to be hired, he said.

  I vowed never to speak to Hodji or anyone in USIC again. While Hodji and I had certainly engaged in many lies together to many extremists, I had never seen him lie to me.

  It was Hodji's unremorseful confession to lying that turned me from a well-behaved person to an f-word-flinging monsoon. Hodji flung the f-word back, and I marched out of the car upon reaching my aunt's. I told him do not call me again, ever, and ended with "May you drink the Red Vinegar I just found for you for free, you spoiled ingratiate."

  However, this does not mean I want to see Tyler or that I will tell him this atrocious news. I do not know what to say when he appears on Saturday morning.

  Tyler reaches a hand out to shake with Aunt Alika across the kitchen table. "Hello, I work at Trinitron with Shahzad." Aunt Alika accepts his lie, and I try not to flinch.