DAY EIGHTEEN OF NINETEEN
Carl said it would be nineteen days, and it had been eighteen. It seemed impossible that we would be in Val Verde tomorrow. It felt like we had done good work. Our social media minions, along with Altus’s own actions, had destroyed most of their favorability. Unsurprisingly, an army of Peter Petrawicki fanboys had appeared to defend their billionaire idol, but they just weren’t getting much traction.
Maya seemed to be almost entirely recovered physically, and I was doing a heck of a lot better mentally. The white stuff remained in her chest, but as long as it kept her healthy, I was overjoyed to see it there.
It was a fine life, but I was starting to wonder when the other shoe was going to drop, when were we going to get to see Miranda again. I was terrified of going to Val Verde and meeting with Peter face‐to‐face. I had no idea what we were going to do when we got there. At the same time, I was absolutely done being confined in this luxurious apartment. There was only so far gorgeous views, a Peloton, and newly rekindled love could take you. We both needed out.
We’d just finished dinner and were all sitting in Mr. Crane’s ridiculous living room when I attempted to distract myself by asking a question that had been on my mind for a while. I thought it was going to de-stress things. HA!
“Hey, Carl,” I said, “why can Andy come here and we don’t have to worry about your brother finding us?”
“I can confound my brother in specific areas. He can’t effectively surveil Andy or predict his actions. Basically, I have a clear predictive model of your group of friends, and I have done things that make his predictive model nonsensical. This is going to become a bad conversation soon, so just know that I knew that going in.”
“What?” I said.
“Maya has just figured something out, and it’s going to make you both very angry,” they told me. I turned to Maya, and her eyes were wide, her mouth holding just a hint of tension, but I knew that look.
“So you . . .” she said, and then, “Wow. You’re right.” She had clearly and suddenly gotten very mad.
“Can one of you two just explain what is going on right now?” I said, getting scared.
“Carl,” she said carefully, “if you are so good at predicting things surrounding me and April, you must have known that someone was coming to that cabin in Vermont.”
“I did.”
“And if you can confound your brother’s predictions, why didn’t you do it then?”
“Because I didn’t want to.”
My heart dropped through the floor. What? I thought maybe I had heard that wrong. I turned to them, “Explain yourself right now.”
The monkey looked back at me, their little face stony. “You needed to know the extent of the danger. I did not know what my brother would do, but I knew he would send someone after you. I had to wait until the threat was clear. It was a dangerous risk, but there was no better way.”
“You could have just hidden us, though.” I stood up from the couch and turned to look at them. Carl followed suit, standing up on the couch to take the full force of my emotions.
“I could have protected you, but it would have doomed your system.”
“Fuck. The. System,” I said. “You said it was a risk. You can predict the future—how likely was it that Maya didn’t leave that cabin alive?”
“In roughly 4 percent of simulations, Maya died,” Carl said.
I leaned over Carl, feeling light-headed as embers flicked the inside of my mind. Slowly, I said, “What gives you that right?”
Carl responded immediately, their amber eyes hard but sad. “Only that I have the ability.”
“What?” I had been expecting Carl to defend themself.
“Power is just a lack of constraint.”
I didn’t understand what they were saying. Maybe I was too angry, or maybe it was too abstract. But then I heard Maya’s voice. I had almost forgotten she was there.
“Carl’s right, that’s what power is. It’s just ability and desire without restriction. What restriction does Carl have, aside from their random rules and the laws of physics. They have the power because they have the power. That’s how power has always been.”
“Leave,” I said.
“I can’t,” Carl replied immediately. “I know I have lost your friendship, and I’ve known it would happen for a long time. It hurts, but pain is just part of what it is to be me now. Regardless, I have to go with you to Altus. If I don’t, you will both die.”
Suddenly and irrationally, a rage rose in me fast and bright, maybe a flashback to my emotional hangover, and I thought I might hit them. But what would that achieve? Carl wasn’t the monkey; the monkey was just a body they were in.
“April”—Carl’s voice was maddeningly calm—“I hate the choices I have to make, but I have to make them because I’m the only one who can.”
I looked over to Maya for permission to flip out, but somehow her face showed a kind of acceptance.
“Maya, they almost killed you!” I said, gesturing to the situation, hoping she would give me permission to let my guard down and have a true and terrible tantrum.
“April . . .” And then she started crying.
I looked down at my hands, one opaque milky glass, and realized what I had been missing. Carl had almost killed me too. What were the odds that I came out of that warehouse
