Hide, p.2
Hide, page 2
Buzzed Ava sits on the ground, stretching one leg easily in front of herself and manually positioning the other. “Good to meet you, Mack. I hope I beat you, and it’s not personal.”
Mack doesn’t answer. It’s a competition. Of course they want to win.
Buzzed Ava nods toward the boy, who has crossed the road and is standing on the other side, staring resolutely away from them. His shoulders are turned inward, his posture less anticipation than defeat. Already.
“That’s LeGrand. He got picked up the same time as me, before Ava Two. When I took off my jacket, he twitched so hard looking away, I thought he’d break his neck. Poor kid is terrified of women. Might give him an edge. He’ll be so desperate to avoid seeing us, he’ll never come out.”
“I think he’s gay.” Beautiful Ava sits on the ground next to buzzed Ava. Beautiful Ava is slender and bony. Buzzed Ava is thicker, strong looking. Mack admires and envies the line of her shoulders, the heft of her core. Her looks challenge in a different way than beautiful Ava’s, but both draw attention.
Mack’s own hair is cut short enough that she could be a guy, or she could be a girl. She wears oversize shirts and baggy pants, hands shoved in pockets to throw her shoulders forward and hide her breasts. Ava and Ava hide nothing.
Mack thinks she’ll beat both of them.
“Not gay,” buzzed Ava says, pulling up a long strand of grass and holding it to her mouth. She blows on it, but no sound comes out. “If he’s that scared of female skin, he’s gotta be interested.” She leans back, squinting toward Mack. “What’s your story?” There’s something equal parts playful and appraising in the way a single bold eyebrow raises.
None of these people are Mack’s friends. No one is her friend. No one will be. She can play nice and hope a mumbled answer satisfies buzzed Ava, but she doesn’t think it will. So she goes for the other tactic.
“Fuck off,” Mack answers.
Beautiful Ava scowls, offended by proxy. Buzzed Ava’s look shifts, but not in a threatened or angry way. “Cool.” She turns back to the road.
Mack retreats further into the shade, but in spite of her dismissal, both Avas eventually join her there. The sun is relentless and droning, like the insects around them. After an hour or two, another van bumps along to them. Beautiful Ava runs up to greet it, but it’s the same story. Hired and dropping off. Over the course of the day, three more vans come until finally there are fourteen people waiting. They all seem around the same age, midtwenties, give or take a few years.
Mack feels more at ease now. With so many people there—several of whom are desperate to establish dominance and be noticed, talking and laughing loudly—she barely registers. Except to buzzed Ava, who brazenly stares at her and winks whenever caught.
When the last van pulls away, everyone looks down the road, waiting.
* * *
—
Five hours later and the mood has shifted considerably. Everyone is sweaty. There’s nowhere to sit but the ground. No phones work. No one has any food or water—though one expertly muscled man increases monetary offers for food by the hour. One of the women, a brunette who looks like a toothpaste commercial with her dazzlingly white smile, cries. Several vow to leave scathing reviews of the experience online. A couple of the men suggest walking down the road to find the nearest town, but the fear of missing the competition keeps them in place. Everyone is short-tempered and angry. Except LeGrand, who stays at a distance, looking utterly lost, buzzed Ava, who is taking a nap with her arms for a pillow, and Mack, who knows she’s two full days from being too hungry to function. A ghost of a smile haunts her face.
She can win this.
As the gentle bruise of evening spreads, a bus arrives. Apologies are delivered with water bottles and sandwiches. Their hostess, a woman well past middle age with a jewel-toned pantsuit and hair that exists in defiance of gravity, is so genuinely excited to greet them it’s hard to hold the scheduling mix-up against her. A p.m. where an a.m. should have been, missed emails, no service, a litany of excuses made softer by calories and hydration…though several of the women will never forgive her for the indignity of having to pee in the woods.
Everything will be explained, the woman promises. But they have a long drive ahead of them, and if they could file into the bus quickly quickly quickly, so much to discuss, so much to prep, such a thrilling week ahead of them!
Water is gulped, food devoured, jokes exchanged. The bus toilet is gratefully and extensively taken advantage of. Seats are claimed, already sorting the contestants. LeGrand sits alone. Beautiful Ava no longer sees Mack, focused on those more on her level. Buzzed Ava follows Mack to the middle of the bus and sits next to her without asking. It’s a problem. Mack wants to be invisible, wants to be underestimated, wants to be unseen. It’s a hide-and-seek competition, after all.
Night arrives. The bus starts. Fourteen heat-exhausted and rehydrated heads bob in near unison.
No instructions are delivered. Everyone is already asleep.
* * *
—
While they sleep, a tour.
Buzzed Ava’s dog tags fall free of her tank top. One set her own. One set not. Her head falls onto Mack’s shoulder. Mack’s head rests against the soft fuzz of Ava’s. It’s the most human contact either of them has had in years. They sleep through it.
Beautiful Ava, aspiring Instagram model, has found beautiful Jaden, aspiring CrossFit gym owner. She has no sponsors and he has no gym, but they are lovely with hope and promise. Beautiful Ava’s head rests against the window. She snores. She would be mortified to know she did it in public, but no one except the driver and their hostess is awake to hear. The driver keeps his eyes on the road with aggressive determination. He wields the steering wheel like a shield. The hostess wanders the aisle, touching each forehead with feather-soft fingers, like a blessing or a benediction.
The benediction misses LeGrand, tucked in the back, lost and alone even surrounded by people. This is not his world, and he doesn’t know how to exist in it. Nothing, nothing makes sense. He dreams of digging for vegetables, his fingers hurting, digging deeper and deeper and finding nothing, knowing he should find something, should be looking for something, but all he can do is keep digging in the dark and the dirt. He’s not looking for vegetables. He’s digging a grave, and it hurts, and he hurts, and he’s terrified he knows whose grave it is.
Ian has a notebook on his lap. His pen, the most expensive thing he owns, has fallen on the floor. He won’t realize it until they’re off the bus and he’s already lost it. How can he write without it? He doesn’t manage to write anything with it, either, but he’ll be convinced it’s the lack of pen holding him back. He came for inspiration. Also for money. A little bit of money, a little bit of security, and he could write the great American novel.
Brandon looks pleasant even in his sleep. There’s something wholesome and helpful in the way he slumbers completely upright, as though ready to dive into service should someone need help. Regardless of what else happens, he’s already had a great time and will be happy with the results. Honestly, he doesn’t even know what he’d do with the money if he won. He can’t quite imagine beating everyone else. It feels petty to want to win, almost mean. Because him winning would mean thirteen people lose. This is an adventure. A vacation. He hasn’t taken a day off since he started working at the gas station at fourteen. But Grammy isn’t waiting for him anymore. He’s been a little lost since she died. An adventure is all he can ask for.
His seatmate slumps, head lolling for hours. There’s still paint on his hands from where he tagged the last bus station. He’s ready to leave his mark on the competition. Hopeful that he can create something here that will follow him back out into the world. He’ll be the next Banksy. No. He’ll be the first Atrius. (His real name is Kyle, and he hates it and everything Kyle was and could be. But he made the mistake of spelling Atreus wrong, so any chance he has of being googleable is taken by a health insurance company. A branding failure by someone determined to exist outside of brands.)
Christian fell asleep with a smile but secretly despairing. No one here seems like a good contact. His idea to do this for potential business opportunities seems as unlikely as actually winning the stupid thing. Maybe he’ll meet someone from Ox Extreme Sports. Everyone needs a good salesman. If he has to knock on one more door and smile while asking about solar panels…
YouTuber Sydney and app developer Logan connected in the forest in the way Christian wished he had managed to with someone. They’re going to make a new app together based on Sydney’s fledgling YouTube prank show. A national prank competition. It’s gonna be huge. They’re glowing even in sleep, secure in their imagined brilliant future. Dinners with Musk, charity summits with Gates, partnerships with Frye Technologies, and so many terrible pranks to get there.
Rebecca has priced out exactly how much it would cost to go from an A to a C. She thinks C is big enough. The agent she met with told her she had potential, but she’d need a little more up top for him to be interested. She’s never been able to settle on whether he meant professionally interested, or casting couch interested. C is the letter that will get her her dreams, and $50,000 is the number that will get her to the letter she needs. She sleeps with her EpiPen-filled purse clutched against her chest like a security blanket.
Rosiee just wants to sell some fucking jewelry. Just once. Just to prove she’s not the loser her mother always predicted she’d be. But silversmithing requires silver, and silver requires money. She’s been hiding from her ex for four years. She can hide for a week, no sweat. Her ear is so heavy with jewelry, it clinks against the window where her head rests. The hostess’s eye lingers over the snake twined around Rosiee’s wrist. So pretty. She actually has talent.
In the front of the bus is Isabella, the eternal intern. She’s interned at more places than she can remember. She wants face time with Ox executives, too. She needs a salary. God, she needs dental benefits. Fifty thousand dollars won’t even cover her student loans for the education she borrowed herself into the ground for. The incredibly expensive degree that has yet to land her a single income-producing job. She grinds her teeth in her sleep.
The bus bumps along the deep tunnel of night, sealing in fourteen desperate dreamers against the world.
Fourteen pairs of bleary eyes open. They assume the bus stopping is what woke them.
They’re wrong. The bus stopped hours ago. While they slept, half a dozen people climbed on, checked names and photos, marked them off on a list. The jewel-toned woman drifted up and down the aisle again, pressing her fingers to each forehead in benediction before rejoining the others outside of the bus. She insists on the pageantry of it, the formality, as they all bow their heads in a minute of silence. A few shuffle their feet, eager to leave. A few roll their eyes. And a few close their eyes in fervent gratitude. Then they’re done, and off to finalize all the logistics, or take their posts, or shut themselves inside their houses until the next meeting before it’s over at last.
With no evidence remaining of their visitors, the passengers stretch. Eleven phones are pulled immediately from pockets and purses. “No service?” Isabella asks, feeling panicky. What if she has a job offer? What if one of her infinite résumés has been flagged for potential? What if someone wants to connect on LinkedIn? No one has ever hoped to receive an email from that morass of despair more than Isabella.
“What provider do you have?” Jaden drapes his arms over the bus seat to best show off his biceps. He used to do these things deliberately, but now it’s reflex. He’s trained himself and his body to perfection.
“Verizon.”
“T-Mobile. Nothing.”
“AT&T,” beautiful Ava says, scowling. “Nothing either. Even the Ox Extreme Sports app we had to download isn’t working. I was going to go live on Insta.”
“What about the NDA?” Isabella says.
“Well, obviously I wasn’t going to say anything specific.” Beautiful Ava scowls.
“Yeah, that was the most intense NDA I’ve ever seen!” Jaden says. Most everyone else laughs and nods, though in reality not a single one of them has ever been involved in something important enough to have a nondisclosure agreement. But none of them are going to admit it.
“I have four bars,” Sydney says. She’s met with hungry—almost desperate—stares. “Prank you very much!” She cringes as soon as it leaves her mouth. She really needs a better tagline for her YouTube show. And now everyone hates her as they slump back into their seats. Even Logan leans away from her. So much for their genius app partnership. In the full light of morning, it all feels less likely.
“No one has any service? Really?” Rebecca walks down the aisle, a bit wobbly, EpiPen purse carefully clutched. Everyone holds up worthless phones. Rebecca stops at Mack and Ava. Neither of them have a phone out. Ava’s eyes are wide, her olive face pale.
“Phones?”
Mack shakes her head. Rebecca interprets it as Mack not having any service, not as Mack not having a phone.
“Your phone?” Rebecca asks Ava. “Do you have any service?”
“Leave me the fuck alone,” Ava mutters, not looking up. Ava had been so calm, so cheerful. This shift unnerves Mack. Rebecca continues her journey to wake up fake-sleeping LeGrand. He doesn’t have a cellphone, either. Those around him are struck with a bone-deep nervousness at the very idea. Their hands spasm around their own phones, now expensive cameras and nothing else.
Ava rubs her hands over her buzzed head. Mack realizes Ava has become Ava, not buzzed Ava. She’s the main Ava in Mack’s worldview. When Mack woke up—before Ava—Ava’s head was on her shoulder, tucked in. The soft tickle of Ava’s shorn head reminded Mack of a puppy. To her shock and mild dismay, she had been sad when Ava startled awake and away from her shoulder.
“Did you sleep?” Ava’s question is weighted with more intensity than it should be.
Mack nods. She can sleep anywhere. She was asleep when he finally ended it. She didn’t hear. The police had been there for hours before she woke up and emerged from her hiding spot. Sleep has always been her great escape, her great comfort. The nightmares are saved for her waking hours.
“I don’t sleep in public.” Ava looks around, twitchy. “Not on airplanes, or buses, or anywhere where I don’t know who’s around me, where I don’t feel safe.” She had been faking her nap yesterday, using the time to listen in on the conversations around herself and evaluate the competition.
Mack had felt safe when she woke up with Ava on her shoulder. Wasn’t that safe? “It was a long day,” Mack says, her voice whisper-soft.
“I’ve gone four days without sleep while traveling.” Ava’s jaw clenches and unclenches. She looks up at the front of the bus, where the driver and their hostess are both missing. Then she reaches for her bag, checks around the floor. “Where’s your water bottle from last night?”
Mack checks her bag. Her water bottle is gone. She shakes her head, some of Ava’s uneasiness wearing off on her.
“Hey!” Ava shouts, standing up. “Did everyone fall asleep last night? Anyone stay awake?” Heads shake. “Does anyone know where we are?”
“I can answer that!” Their hostess climbs aboard, her smile as bright as the morning sun.
Ava sits back down, scowling. “Fourteen people and no one stayed awake.”
“Maybe you felt safe?” Mack whispers. Her shoulder is cold where Ava’s head no longer rests.
“Do you feel safe?”
Mack looks out the window. She had, for those few seconds between sleeping and waking. And it had been the first time in a very long time. But the feeling is gone now, and it wasn’t shared, which makes it all sadder.
“Welcome to the town of Asterion! It’s a bit of a technological wonder,” their hostess says, giggling to herself. “An all-natural cell-free zone! There’s a particular type of mineral everywhere here—they used to mine it. It interferes so strongly with cell signals that the companies stopped trying. So I’m afraid for the duration of the competition you will be without cell service.”
“Wi-Fi?” Rebecca asks, the actress acting as de facto leader.
“We have some good old-fashioned pay phones. You’re welcome to use them this morning as we prep before going into the competition zone. Twenty-five cents, but long distance is more so you may need to call collect.”
“Who has change these days?” Rosiee voices everyone’s thought as she twists one of her heavy silver bracelets.
“Why have us download an app if we can’t even use it?” beautiful Ava grumbles.
Logan perks up at the mention of the app. The app is by Frye Technologies, the Silicon Valley giant he shares a last name with. It’s part of why he wants to go into making apps. He feels connected already, like he’s destined to share that success.
But the woman waves dismissively. “Oh! The app. I forgot about that. It’s for after the competition, so don’t delete it. Gathering information, feedback, blah blah. Not my department. And I am sorry about the lack of service—I know how you young people like your phones!—but it’s actually one of the features that drew us to Asterion. You’ll remember your NDAs. Ox Extreme Sports is quite serious about those. They’re still in developmental stages on the tournament, so they need to control the flow of information. They’re considering selling it as a reality show.”
Half the bus citizens perk up, like dogs on a scent. Half sink down, like those same dogs after years of abuse.
“But of course nothing is decided yet. We reserve all rights. Now, I’m sure you’re hungry. The Star Diner is ready and waiting. While we’re there, I’ll brief you on today’s schedule.”
Mack slouches in her seat. She doesn’t have any cash.
