She was pretty sure he’d told the truth when he said he wasn’t at BNL anymore, but he still hadn’t said it to her again after that one mention in the park that he seemed to have forgotten. She couldn’t tell if he knew that she knew. Why did he bother with the deception of wearing the BNL shirt if it wasn’t to fool them?
It took her longer than it should have to realize Sophie must have been talking about David when she posted her discovery that Pilots could be turned off with the lights still on. Not until she caught him at breakfast one morning, still in his BNL uniform but looking like he must have slept in it. He sat in the kitchen chair he usually hated, the one with its back to the room instead of the wall, drinking coffee with his eyes closed.
“Good morning,” Julie said, and David startled so badly his coffee left his mug, like a cartoon, hovered above it for a second, then spilled over his hand, his lap, the table.
“Why would you sneak up on me?” He sounded petulant; he’d never been a petulant kid.
“I didn’t. I walked into the room and said hi. It’s a normal thing to do. Are you hurt?”
“No, but now I have to change.”
“It’s not like you’re going to work,” she said. “Put something else on.”
He stared at her. “How do you know?”
“What do you mean, how do I know? I ran into you in the park a few weeks ago, remember? You said you weren’t working at BNL anymore, so I don’t know why you’re still wearing their uniform.”
His expression was laced with doubt, but she didn’t know which part he doubted. After a minute, he went upstairs. She wiped the table and chair and poured her own cup. He returned wearing jeans and a button-down shirt.
She searched for a question to ask him that wouldn’t sound like parental nudging. In the end she settled on apology in the name of clarity. “Sorry if I surprised you. You’re usually aware I’m coming into the room before I even know I’m coming in.”
He shrugged. “It’s okay. I was distracted, I guess.”
“I hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience to change.”
She waited for him to say no, no inconvenience, he didn’t need to be wearing those clothes anymore, this was his plan for the day, any or all of the above. He just shrugged again, got up, and left.
She thought about it all day at work. Got back to find Val making her usual giant dinner.
“Hey, love,” she said, putting her hands on Val’s waist and kissing her neck, careful not to get in the way as her wife stirred whatever was in the pot. It smelled good, like onions and butter. “Can I do something to help?”
“Nah. I’m almost done, but thanks.”
“Is either kid here?”
“I don’t think so.”
Julie took a deep breath. “Have you noticed anything strange about David recently?”
“Strange, like what?”
“Have you noticed he’s distracted? Like that thing the other night where he didn’t hear us say hi when he came in? I think . . . I think his Pilot is off.”
“Like it’s broken?”
“Like the light is on, but I think the Pilot isn’t.”
Val turned and frowned. “Is that possible? I’ve never heard of that.”
“I saw it mentioned somewhere.”
“Huh. I guess he’ll tell us when he’s ready, if that’s the case . . . crap.” Val turned back to the stovetop, where the onions had started to burn. Julie waited for her to say more, but she busied herself with salvaging the meal. It figured she wasn’t as concerned as Julie about this.
The front door creaked open and then shut again. “What’s burning?” called Sophie.
Val smiled at Julie to share her happiness that one of the kids had joined them for dinner. Julie changed the subject to ask how Val’s day had been, so they were on safer topics than Pilots and the lack thereof when Sophie entered the room.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
VAL
Val was good at ignoring the outside world. She’d never seen the point of social media, so she’d never felt the temptation to check for updates during her school day. She kept her phone on “do not disturb,” with emergency overrides for her family.
The day after Julie said she thought David had deactivated his Pilot, she found herself itching to go online, for the first time in ages. It had come to her after lunch: the memory of the BNL Pilot parent forum that she had looked at only once, the morning of David’s activation. At the time, she’d been surprised to find that every post was positive. She desperately wanted to know whether that was still the case. She waited through her afternoon’s classes, then track, trying to keep her head in the game, to give her focus to her students, as they deserved. What did David deserve? Something better than noise.
While her last students finished their cooldowns, and the neighborhood joggers and walkers replaced them on the track, she sat on the bleachers and pulled out her phone. She navigated to BNL’s website, but couldn’t find the forum. Was she misremembering? Had it been on some other site? No. She distinctly recalled wondering if the fact that it was owned by BNL meant they would censor negative comments. Maybe they’d deleted it entirely.
She tried a web search for “Pilot parent forum” with no results, then “Pilot forum,” also nothing, then “Pilot group.” Did you mean to search for “Pilot Survivor Group”? She hadn’t, but now she most definitely did. It was on a site she boycotted, but the privacy restrictions were set so she could browse
