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Now I watch as you and Bruce trek down the wet path. I’m right behind you, not twenty feet away. But you—you’re the predator, not the prey. You don’t even think to look back for anyone who might be on your trail. The two of you tromp, not speaking, rain glistening on your backs. The air smells of leaves and humidity. The falling rain, the wind in the leaves is a sound barrier and I am just a shadow.
Some of us are seekers. Broken links. We’re always trying to figure out how and where we fit.
“So is your family local?”
You asked me this our first night working late. You sat at your desk, and I was on your couch surrounded by applications. I was helping you look for some new testers. What a job. Kids who sit in a dark room and play the games you build all day, looking for glitches and bugs, offering feedback. I was holding the application of a kid finishing his junior year at USF, looking for a summer internship at Red World.I’m a gamer, he writes in his letter.My YouTube channel has 10K followers.This is how we define ourselves now, our worth determined by how many people like, follow, engage.
“Actually, I don’t really have any family,” I answered.
“Everyone has family,” you said absently, staring at your screen, your face washed in that ugly blue light. It made you look sickly with shadows for eyes and a hard line for a mouth.
“No,” I said. “Not really. I mean—biologically, yes. But in actuality, some people are on their own. I’m an orphan.”
You looked at me, cocked your head.
“My dad—” I went on. “I have no idea who he is. My mom—she was troubled and died in an accident when I was a kid. Got a job, paid my way through school and, well, here I am.”
All lies, half-truths, almost real, not quite what happened. But close enough. The essence close enough to reality that it rings true.
“That sucks.” I heard real empathy in your voice, and for a minute I almost liked you.
I shrugged, not into feeling sorry for myself. “It is what it is. I have a half brother. But we don’t talk much.”
The truth is that we’re all essentially alone. The lucky ones have a crew to share the load from birth to death. But in the end, we go as we came—a single entity, just passing through. But that’s not a thing people like to hear. The story of being surrounded and supported and loved, being a part of something, the whole, almost sacred notion that family is everything is sold hard, and bought completely.
“Family isn’t easy either,” you said into the silence.
“No,” I said. “I’m sure that’s true. What about this guy?”
I handed over the application from the USF computer science major, and you regarded it, flipping through the letter and the résumé. “Yeah, yeah. Drop him an email. YouTubers are good; free exposure.”
“And this one.” You handed over another application, which I stuck in my pile of kids to reach out to the next day.
Outside the sky was growing dark, towering cumulous clouds impossible white, gray, blue mountains in the sky and the orange sun painting them pink, sinking into the black horizon line. The day had been a scorcher, a blistering 95 that with the humidity felt like 110. Sometimes it seems like Florida is trying to kill its residents, doesn’t it? It wants us to go away so that it can reclaim its swampy self, be left alone to its darkness—alligators, snakes, and roaches free from pavement and walls of condo buildings, and wildlife corridors butting up against superhighways.
When I looked back at you, you were staring at me. Which made my skin crawl. I had been working there a little under a month and starting to wonder if the things I thought I knew about you were true. I hadn’t seen anything illegal, or picked up on anything unethical. People in the office seemed happy; you kept your eyes and hands to yourself, were respectful. The things I’d put together about you were whispers, vague accusations, rumors—an idea gleaned from piecing together articles, an accusation from your teen years, and bits from Reddit chats, company reviews on job boards.
Red World is a toxic workplace.
My boss wanted me to cook data for the investors.
M can’t keep his hands off the young interns. One of them said he drugged her at a tech conference.
Some men came in late; they looked like thugs. I think the company is borrowing money from bad people.
I heard RW could go under in a year. Everyone is going to lose their jobs unless the new game saves the company.
But people lied and made things up; the internet was full of trolls and saboteurs, cancelers and disgruntled people looking for revenge, bots, competitors trying to subvert and undermine.
I was starting to wonder if I may have been wrong about you.
I wasn’t.
Now I stand back, slip into the trees as you and Bruce come to the cabin.
“It doesn’t look like there’s anyone in there,” says Bruce, his voice deep. He glances behind him, but I’m sure he can’t see me as I’ve ducked into the trees.
“The power’s out.” You knock on the door, hard. “Liza! Liza! Are you in there? Tell me what’s going on.”
