The Silence of Six (28 page)
Evan let out a long, shuddering breath.
“So, a contact of mine was instructed to place this link where you’d find it, after the presidential election. I know whatever happened, you did your best. You always do. So. . .
Thank you.
Not just for this, but for being my best friend.”
“Shut up,” Max said, barely able to get the words out past the ball of emotion lodged in his throat.
“You’re one of the only people I feel like I could trust with my—”
He laughed.
“My life. And now with this, what’s left of it.”
Evan spread his hands. They started shaking and Evan stared at them until they calmed down. He squeezed them into fists.
“Don’t worry about showing this to my parents. Oh, um, would you check on them once in a while? Mom. . . .”
Evan looked away. The picture jumped and Evan was now more composed, but his eyes were red and puffy.
“Your mom’s okay, Evan,” Max said. “She misses you, but she’s going to be okay.” He’d been to visit the Baxters a few days ago. They were still a wreck, but knowing that their son had died trying to make a difference was helping them to pick up the pieces. They were talking about taking a long vacation, to get away from Granville and the media circus, and the memories.
“As soon as you accessed this video, a link was automatically sent to Mom and Dad and a few other people, with a different video and some other things they’ll need.”
On cue, Penny’s phone beeped in her purse.
“Max, don’t feel bad. We drifted apart a bit, but it’s okay. Really. I’m glad you have your own thing, that you weren’t dragged into this sooner and ended up hurt because of me. I hope you’re happy. Good luck. You’re going to need it without me there keeping you out of trouble.”
Max let out a strangled laugh, half a sob.
“Take care of P-squared.”
Max glanced at Penny. She blushed.
“I know you have a freakishly good memory, but I’m leaving you with something else to remember me by. I saved some things on the cloud for you.”
Evan’s face was wet with fresh tears, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Link?” Max asked.
“And I have one last favor to ask. This one’s easy: Hold on to some stuff for me for a while. You don’t have to look for it. You probably won’t find it even if you do. But it’ll be with you, and you’ll have it if you need it. But I hope you won’t need it.”
“God damn it, Evan,” Max said. “What is it now?”
“Maxwell Stein, good-bye. It has been an honor and a privilege.”
Evan gave Max a goofy salute he’d copied from an old British science fiction show.
The video faded to black.
“Wait. What?” Max said. He tapped at the screen. “That can’t be all.”
Max’s phone beeped and a message popped up: “This application is attempting to upload data to your phone. Accept?”
Max’s finger wavered over the Yes button. He didn’t know what Evan’s program was sending, but there was a chance that the next time he visited this site, the data would be gone. It was now or never.
“Come on,” Penny said. “Is there any question?”
He tapped Yes and file names flickered over his screen, too quickly to read.
“What the hell, Evan?” Maybe Evan wanted him to have his comprehensive digital porn collection.
After five minutes, the progress bar reached 100 percent. Then another box popped up: “Warning. Disk almost out of space. 35MB free.”
Evan’s data dump had taken up nearly 10GB on his phone’s SD card. Which meant Max’s phone was way over his monthly data allowance.
Great
.
He checked the website again, and it returned “HTTP Error 503 Service Unavailable.” He’d made a good call grabbing the files while he could. All trace of them, and the video, was gone.
“What is it?” Penny asked.
Max thumbed through the files.
Folders full of images, and a few files that looked like junk, with no file extensions. He’d found that garbage data on Evan’s four dead drops too, along with the code for SH1FT, but hadn’t been able to figure them out yet. That was a problem for another day; he was tired of puzzles and riddles.
Max opened a photo named besties001.jpg. It was the same photo of him and Evan that Evan had modified to include his torrent file of data against Panjea and Tooms.
Max tapped the screen and the next image appeared, another picture of them from the same day.
He expanded the view and checked the previews of all the images. “They’re all pictures of me.”
Many of them had Evan in them, some of them were so recent that they even included Courtney, and there were even pictures of the soccer team. Evan had pictures of games Max didn’t know he’d been to, and there were also scans of newspaper clippings about the team—all the ones that mentioned Max, even briefly.
As Max clicked through every photo in the folder, all 217 of them, he realized he was crying. Tears splashed against the screen. He swiped at it with his sleeve.
Evan had always acted like he didn’t care about Max playing soccer. He’d been downright unsupportive, even jealous of all the time it took away from their friendship. But he’d collected all of these over the last few months and had been following his games.
There were other folders too—filled with things that had meant something to Evan. Things he loved. Mix CDs of his most-listened-to music. Video files: pirated movies, favorite episodes of TV shows, YouTube clips. E-books and scans of comics.
Penny was looking at her phone. “Is it okay if I play this later? I kind of want to watch it alone. Not. . . here.”
“Of course. You want to go back to the car?”
“I want to save it,” she said. “I mean, yes, for later. But also literally. I’m going to make sure I record a copy of it while it streams.”
“I wish I could have done that.”
“You have a photographic memory.”
Max smiled. “Yeah, I do.” And this video was going to replace the last image he’d seen of Evan, which had launched him on this whole adventure.
Max got up and brushed off his pants. He helped Penny up. Then he tore the sticker off Evan’s headstone, crumpled it up, and stuffed it into his pocket.
“I thought I was getting over it, but. . . are you all right?” she asked.
Max swung his backpack onto his left shoulder. “I think I will be,” he said.
As they walked back to the car, Penny slipped her hand into his. He smiled. His new life was different, and very strange, but it had potential.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“What is
The Silence of Six
?”
This book resulted from the collective talents and support of a multitude of people who contributed in many ways, large and small. Even I don’t know all their names, but I owe a debt of gratitude to each and every one of them.
Writing a book is like assembling a jigsaw puzzle that has lots of pieces, and some of them are missing, and a few pieces from other puzzles have gotten mixed in, and you might even be looking at the picture on the box upside down. But you start at the edges, you work your way to the center, and you rely on others to help spot holes and figure out where everything belongs.
Biggest thanks to Marshall Lewy, for always keeping the big picture in mind and for excellent guidance and extraordinary patience in getting us there over many drafts. My editor, Kristy King, was brilliant and insightful, helping to fit all the pieces together and making the book greater than the sum of its parts. My amazing copy editor, Liz Tingue, went to heroic lengths to make sure that some embarrassing mistakes were never leaked to the public. I appreciate everyone at Adaptive Books for their creativity, enthusiasm, and tireless collaboration in shaping this story; I’ve learned so much from them along the way, while also having tremendous fun.
As always, I’m extremely grateful to my author friends, accomplished storytellers who encouraged and advised me throughout this project, especially Tiffany Schmidt, Elisa Ludwig, Paul Berger, Tom Crosshill, Kris Dikeman, Devin Poore, Lilah Wild, and Fran Wilde.
Cheers to Eddie Schneider, the growing forces at JABberwocky Literary Agency, and Tigger too.
Last but not least, thank you to my family for understanding why I was often writing in coffee shops instead of interacting in the real world—and for not holding it against me. . .much. All my love to Mom, Cora, Taylor, John, Kate, Mark, Liz, and Caroline.
Adaptive would like to thank Stephen Hauser, whose provocative question
What is the Silence of Six
? planted the seed for this story.
Also Available from ADAPTIVE BOOKS
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