He just stares at me and doesn’t respond, so I add, “We need to know,” for good measure. Because we do.
Ben nods. “I’m sorry, J, I . . .” He swallows. “This guy came to see me—”
“What guy?” Barclay asks, I guess to make sure we’re after the right one.
“His name’s Constantine Meridian,” Ben says. “He’s tall, thin, light hair shaved close to his head, gnarly barbed-wire tattoo. Kind of looks like a skinhead.”
Barclay nods.
“He’s a bad guy,” Ben says, and I’m surprised at how shaken he looks. “He caught one of the guards sleeping when he was watching the security cameras. He got all of us together, woke everyone up who was asleep, called back the guys who were out on an assignment, and told us, ‘Carl’s tired. We need to make sure he gets more rest.’ Then he injected him with something. Killed him on the spot.”
I think of the way Meridian looked at me in the prison, the blood on his shirt, Derek telling me to run, and I feel cold.
Ben tells a story similar to Elijah’s. Meridian was impressed with his abilities and offered him a job. When Ben refused, they beat him up and threatened the people he cared about.
“I held on as long as I could,” he says, and for a moment, I think that’s all he’s going to say. He’s looking down, hair flopping in his face, his Adam’s apple moving as he swallows down the guilt he must feel.
Then suddenly, he pushes up from the table and walks toward a window. “When they brought her in,” he says, his voice cracking, “her face swollen and bloody, that was it. I couldn’t bear to see what else they would do to her.” He lowers his voice, but not too much. We all hear him. “I thought she was you.”
He stops then, and we all let him. I’ve been wrapped up in what I’m going through, so I haven’t exactly bothered to ask him how he’s dealing with all this. He thought he’d done something noble and brave—something for me—and it turned out that he made the wrong choice.
I can’t blame him for that. I’ve killed a man, and I’m going to carry that around with me for the rest of my life. But just because I don’t blame him doesn’t mean things will ever be the same.
Ben turns around, leans against the wall, and folds his arms across his chest. “I worked with them for about three weeks,” he says, his voice raw with regret. “I did whatever they asked, and then when they’d started to relax around me, trust me a little, they brought her to see me again as a reward. That’s when I ran.”
I suppose I should be thankful that he valued me over Derek and his parents—that I was more important to him than taking down Meridian and saving the people he grabbed. But it just makes me feel worse. It weighs on my chest and makes it hard to breathe. I wonder how many people out there are injured or dead because of me.
“What can you tell us about their operation?” Barclay asks. He hesitates a little as he says it, like he’s choosing his words carefully, and I realize, even though we’re all on the same side here, he’s still treating Elijah and Ben like outsiders, like suspects. He might not tell me everything, but at least he doesn’t lie to me or play games.
“While I was working for them, I lived in the world that’s their base of operations . . . it’s hard to describe, sort of like a movie, where everyone there is a bad guy. There’s a processing center for everyone they bring in,” Ben says.
“The slaves?” I ask, because I don’t want to get confused about who we’re talking about, and I don’t want to mince words or pussyfoot around something because it makes us uncomfortable. We need to call it what it is. These people who are being trafficked, they’re slaves.
Ben nods. “We called them the Unwilling.”
02:18:24:44
I can feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, and a shiver moves through me. “They have Cecily,” I say. I explain everything I know. How my world fell apart—the shortages of food, water, electricity, medicine, everything. I recount the first missing-persons case, the high count of people who vanished from Qualcomm, and the last abduction, when Cecily was taken too.
In the end, I add, “We need to get her back.”
Ben swears. “I . . .”
“We’ll get her back,” Elijah says. “We’ll get them all back, and we’ll take these fuckers down.” He reaches out, grabs Ben’s shoulder, and gives it a shake. “What do we need to do?”
“We need to know everything about the operation,” Barclay says. “We need to know how it worked. How did you know who to grab and where and all that?”
Ben takes a deep breath and repositions himself on his chair. It’s like I can see him pulling a hardened shell around himself. He’s overcome—I know the feeling—but he’s with us. He isn’t about to let these guys get away with this. “It was different depending on the assignment. I guess Meridian had people who were doing scout work, I’m not sure. In the beginning, I had to work with a partner. We’d get a location and a type of person they wanted. It could be vague, like gender and age range, or sometimes it would be more specific, like hair or eye color or something.”
Like shopping. If my stomach wasn’t so empty, I’d be fighting to keep from throwing up.
“The last couple of jobs I did were different,” Ben continues. “I was on my own, and I had a specific person they wanted me to grab: name, age, height, weight, appearance, sometimes even a picture or files, like someone had been keeping tabs on them.”
“So they sometimes were targeting specific people?” Barclay asks, and I know from his tone he wasn’t expecting that.
Ben nods. “When I brought them in, they didn’t stay at the processing center. Someone else portaled them out that night. Usually one of Meridian’s main guys.”
I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly. I’m not sure why these targeted people are different, but they are and I know that’s important. It’s another piece of the puzzle. Whenever I think I’ve gotten a handle on this situation and what we’re up against, I’m surprised by the horror of it. How can this be real?
Barclay is still calm. “So you lived at the processing center in this world. Could you take us there if you needed to?”
Ben nods.
“And you’d get a job, portal out, grab whoever the job was, and portal them back to the processing center. Then what?”
Ben shifts on his feet and blows out a steady breath. I wonder if he lay awake at night, unable to sleep because of the guilt, how he justified to himself that saving me was worth so many other lives, and if he’s started to think about what he did—for me—and how it wasn’t actually for me at all.
His eyes find mine, and I know what I’m seeing in them. Because what Ben is feeling, I am too. I don’t know how things got so messed up, how we went from belonging to two different worlds—something that already seemed impossible—to wherever we are now, with my double in another room, human traffickers and IA agents looking for us, and countless people whose lives we’re both responsible for tearing apart.
“Come on, we need to focus,” Barclay says.
Ben nods. “There was a guy in charge of the processing center, and I’d report to him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Basil something. A lot of the guys there called him Razor or Raze.”
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Barclay says with a snort. He pushes back into his chair and runs his hands through his hair. The gesture looks so much like something Ben would do.
Trying to concentrate, I lean forward. “What? What does that mean?”
“Basil ‘Razor’ Lehrman is a smuggler and a rapist. He got his nickname when he was fifteen and killed his parents by cutting them up with a razor blade. But he’s . . .” Barclay’s eyes widen and he lets out a bitter laugh. “They’ve set up their processing center right under IA’s nose on the Black Hole.”
“The Black Hole?” Please let this not be what I think it means. I am not up for space travel.
“It’s a world that was demolished thousands of years ago,” B
arclay says. “Someone in IA found it when we were first making a map of the multiverse, but it’s got no sustainable plant or animal life anywhere. We even tried to set up a colony, but plants shriveled and died after a few days, and people would get sick. It’s like something happened to the atmosphere.”
“What does IA use it for?” Elijah asks.
“They built an underground prison there like fifteen years ago and stationed some IA guards there—you know, the guys who fucked up beyond repair. It’s where they send the worst of the worst, the criminals who are so bad, they want them on a different world.”
“Guys like Basil Razorblade?” I ask.
Barclay nods. “Guys who have a lot of ties to other bad guys, guys who IA is never going to let see the light of day outside a prison again. They exile them to the Black Hole and put them underground.”
It’s unfathomable to me that the IA would execute me in three days, but someone like Basil gets to live out his life in prison.
“Why not just execute them?” Elijah apparently has the same thought.
“A lot of these guys have big secrets, and if they die, whatever it is they know is going to die with them,” Barclay says. “If those secrets are information that could be valuable to IA or the government, then why not put them in a hole in the ground for ten years and then see if they’re willing to give it up?”
“But if it’s an IA prison, that can’t be where the base of operations is,” Ben says.
But I see where Barclay is going with this. If you were organized and had the technology to set up anywhere—get in and out of any world—which Meridian obviously does, it would be the perfect place to set up operations. As long as Meridian and his guys could come and go undetected, there’s virtually no risk. It’s essentially an unmonitored world—no unwanted IA agents are going to just drop in, and if you kill or pay off the guards, everyone else who’s there would be cheap labor. After all, Meridian can smuggle in things they want, make their lives better in almost every possible way, and maybe even offer them a way out after they’ve done enough for him. Talk about incentives.
Which means the prison has probably been converted to the processing center, and the inmates are probably now in charge of the slaves.
I look at Barclay. “This is bad. How many guys are in this world?”
He sighs. “I don’t know. The universe has been stripped from the records. It doesn’t even have a name. We just call it the Black Hole because that’s what it is, and you’ve got to call it something when you’re talking about it. There could be a dozen guys or there could be five hundred. I have no idea.”
“It’s more than a dozen,” Ben says. “As a guess, I’d say there are about forty guys who are working for Raze, and then twenty more who take turns smuggling the Unwilling in and out. At least, I think. There could be a few more, but I met twenty of them. They’ve only got eight of the devices that open portals. I got the impression they used to have a few more, but they’ve stopped working or something.”
So they’re working in shifts. “How many jobs did you do a day?”
He doesn’t look at me when he answers. “Anywhere between eight and twelve.”
That number makes me go cold, all the way down to my fingertips.
If he was there three weeks, it means he grabbed somewhere between 168 and 252 people. And that’s just Ben. If there are twenty guys bringing back that many people . . .
“Holy shit,” Barclay whispers, and I know he’s just done the math in his head too.
“What?” Elijah says, looking from Barclay to me.
I press my palm against my chest. Ben did this because of me and that makes those people he grabbed my responsibility. It hurts to say it out loud, but I do anyway. “That’s like an average of fourteen hundred people a week.”
02:17:01:14
“It’s a huge operation,” Ben says. “And that’s just the processing center I was working with. They’ve either got others set up or they’re working on it.” He looks at Barclay. “This thing is only going to get bigger. Meridian’s got someone trying to replicate the formula for the hydrochloradneum that Eli and I drank. If he can give that to all his guys, they can stay under the radar better and work around the clock. He can even recruit more guys to help. They’ll be more efficient.”
The laws of supply and demand apparently don’t discriminate.
Barclay leans forward. “Okay, let’s go back to the processing center. After you brought in the slaves, then what?”
“Raze would have someone take the Unwilling and place them in the cell that designated where they were going.”
Thinking of Cecily, I ask, “How long did they stay there?”
“I’m not sure,” Ben says. “I didn’t have much to do with the transfers out. But I think it depended on a couple things, like how cooperative they were and what kind of orders there were.”
“Orders?” Like a purchase order—I can’t understand how human trafficking can be so emotionally detached.
Ben nods. “It’s organized. They’ve got a couple computers where they keep all the records. It’s coded, I think, but they’ve got files on all of the Unwilling, where they came from, where they’re going, whether it was a specific order or not. They’ve even got files on big customers who are doing bulk orders.”
“This shit is so fucked up,” Elijah says, and I’m glad we’re on the same page.
“We need those files,” Barclay says. “That’s our proof.”
I agree with him completely. Something like that would be black and white—no one would be able to jump in and say they didn’t believe us. It’s enough to make me wonder why bad guys would keep a record of the illegal things they do when it’s so obviously the thing that could sink them.
But these guys have an organization that seems like it would rival a major corporation, and if Barclay’s right, they’ve got someone in IA in their pocket, and they’ve been operating for years now. They’re pretty sure they’re not going to get caught.
“So we break in and grab that shit,” Elijah says. “Let’s do it now.”
Barclay squeezes the bridge of his nose, and I know why. It’s not going to be that easy—and we still have a big problem. Ben has just given us a lot, but nothing that exposes who in IA is involved, and Barclay needs actual concrete proof of the operation that he can take to IA, and he needs to know who he can take it to so that it won’t get swept under the rug. He isn’t sure how high the conspiracy goes.
“Just tell me what to do. How can we fix this,” Ben says, and I can’t tell if he’s talking to me or Barclay.
I don’t know what to say or if this can be fixed, so I let Barclay do the talking.
“Going back to Janelle’s double,” Barclay says. “Did you ever actually see them hit her?”
“I didn’t have to. She was beat to shit.”
“I just think it’s important to note, you didn’t actually see anyone hurt her,” Barclay says, his voice quiet but stern.
“Her injuries aren’t fake, if that’s what you’re saying,” Ben says.
He might not know her, but he’s certainly willing to defend her. I can’t bear to hear any more of it, so I add, “That’s not what he’s trying to say.”
Elijah suddenly leans into the table. “Are you saying you think someone else could have beat her up?”
Barclay shrugs. “Maybe someone else beat the crap out of her, and someone in IA offered her some kind of deal. A ‘help us, and we’ll take care of your problem’ kind of deal.”
Elijah stands up abruptly, knocking his chair to the ground. “If she’s working for them, she could lead them right to us.”
“I know,” Barclay says. “Which is why we need to talk to her.”
02:16:49:43
On my way out, Ben moves in front of me and blocks my path to the door.
When I look at his face, I see him singing to her—her hand touching his arm. It’s enough to make my throat constrict, to make my eyes watery. I’m no
t ready to talk, so I try to move around him.
“Please,” he whispers. “I just need to know you’re okay.”
Barclay and Elijah disappear down the hallway.
I’m tempted to say, “We don’t have time for this,” or to make some other excuse. To ask him how any of us could possibly be okay in this situation. We’re on the run from IA, trying to take down human traffickers. I escaped from prison and killed a man. Cecily has been abducted into slavery. And I just saw the guy I love with another version of myself. None of that is in any way okay.
I’m some kind of glutton for punishment, so I look at Ben and tell the truth.
“No, I’m not okay.”
His lips press together, a grimace passing over his face, and he reaches for me. I can’t handle that, though, and when he sees me flinch he lets his hand fall to his side.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice a little shaky.
“Is that it?” I ask because sorry doesn’t fix this.
Ben shakes his head. “I just . . . I don’t know . . . it never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be you, and . . .”
He shifts his weight on his feet, and I feel like I should say something—something to bridge the gap between us, or at least something to help him do that.
But I can’t. I just can’t—it’s like I’m waiting for this tidal wave of emotions to crash down over me and carry me away from this conversation.
“Do you remember the time sophomore year when you had that old truck?” he says. It was my first car, a 1968 Ford F-250. “It was in October, I think, and I didn’t have work. I was headed up to Black Mountain Park, and I saw your truck, empty, with steam pouring out of your engine.”
The thing was a manual transmission and it sucked going up hills, even the ones that were lame. It was always stalling out or locking up. I was constantly leaving the truck on the side of the road. That afternoon was one of the reasons I convinced my dad to get rid of it.
“I went over to check it out and see what was wrong,” he continues. “I don’t know what happened, and you had obviously stormed off, so I checked it out. The radiator hose had a leak, so I fused it back together. I even waited a little for you to come back. I told myself I was actually going to talk to you, start a conversation, but then Elijah texted and asked what was taking me so long to get to his house, and I lost my nerve.”