So instead of calling her, Katie decided to try to talk some sense into her idiot brother herself. She brought up ARCHIE from her contacts list, and tapped on his name.
It rang. And rang. And rang. And—
“Yeah?” Archie said.
In the background, someone — Katie thought it sounded like Nick — shouted, “Hi, Katie!”
“You need to get your ass back here right now,” she said in her most stern, older sister voice.
“I’ll be back soon,” he said.
“After Intercourse!” That time it sounded like Rory.
“Whose car are you in?” Katie asked.
“Nick’s, I mean, like, Nick’s dad’s car.”
“Do his parents even know he’s got it?”
Archie paused. “Nick’s dad set it all up to take voice commands from him.”
“That’s not what I asked you. Do they know he’s got the car?”
“Okay, maybe not technically. But he’s very responsible, and the car won’t do anything stupid or illegal. We can’t speed or anything. In a lot of ways, it’s not even any fun at all. Did you know there’s a place in Pennsylvania called Intercourse? I wonder if there’s an In-N-Out Burger there?”
“Get home right now,” she said. “If you don’t get back here, I swear I’ll kill you.”
“Well, if I don’t come back, then you can’t kill me,” Archie countered. “That’s very abusive language you’re using, Katie.”
The little shit. He was parroting their mother.
Maybe the time had come to just plead.
“Come on, Archie, just get them to drop you off. Please. You know Mom’s not going to freak out just at you over this. She’s going to freak out at me, too. And then it’s going to be awful around here. We’re both going to be grounded till Christmas.”
Archie was quiet for several seconds at his end. Katie briefly wondered if the call had dropped out. It happened a lot on the island.
But then, “Hang on, Nick is saying something. Nick is saying we might go to Garrett Mall. Is that okay? If we’re at the mall, we can’t get into any trouble there.”
“It doesn’t even open for, like, another hour,” Katie said.
“So we’ll drive around the neighborhood till then. We’ll be fine. Gotta go.”
And with that, he ended the call.
“Shit!” Katie said.
What if her mom called? What if she took a minute from her crazy day and checked in to see how she and Archie were doing?
If she had a license — and a car of her own — she’d go out looking for him.
There were Arrival taxis on the island during the experiment period — driverless Ubers, basically. Should she call one of them?
She stewed for several seconds about what to do. She felt she needed the advice of an adult — so long as that adult was not her mother.
Katie pocketed her phone, walked to the front door, and opened it. She looked at the house across the street.
The home of the creepy serial killer. The one who went by the name Bruce Clifford, Archie had so proudly revealed at breakfast.
Katie stepped out of the house, closed and locked the front door behind her. She walked over the lawn, crossed the sidewalk and the street, then went up the driveway. She went to the front door and held her finger an inch away from the doorbell.
She paused a moment, considering her decision.
Katie pressed her index finger to the doorbell and held it. Inside the house, she heard the chimes ring. Seconds later, the faint sound of footsteps within the house.
There was the sound of a deadbolt being thrown half a second before the door opened wide.
Bruce Clifford, dressed in a white undershirt and a pair of faded jeans, looked at the girl through a pair of glasses that perched crookedly on his bulbous nose.
“Hey, Bruce,” she said.
“How’s it going, Katie?” he asked.
“Can I come in? I’ve got a problem.”
He stepped back. “You want some coffee?”
“I don’t really like it, but sure, that sounds like a plan,” Katie said, stepping into the house.
Eight
Sandra needed a moment.
Everything was ready to go. The media types were all positioned at their temporary workstations neatly arranged throughout the gym so that they could set up their computers and file stories while the presentation was under way. Everyone had been given, inside a handsome leather pouch that was individually addressed to each attendee, a press kit, a computer stick with a digital version of all the information in the press kit (with plenty of whiz-bang animations thrown in for good measure) that was shaped like an Arrival car, an Arrival key fob with the company logo, even a small metal diecast model of an Arrival — about four inches long — that reporters could take home and give to their kids, or keep for themselves.
There was a low-level buzz in the room. People were excited. Sandra could feel it. But before she did anything else, she slipped out a back door of the community center, leaned her back against the wall, and closed her eyes.
“This is for you, Adam,” she whispered. “It’s all in your honor, what I’m doing here today. These Arrival people, okay, they’re not the nicest bunch I’ve ever worked with, but what they’re doing, it’s going to change the future. It’s going to be a safer world for our kids, so what happened to you” — and at this point, she felt a lump in her throat — “so what happened to you could never happen to them. I miss you, babe. You give me strength. You’re still my guy.”
She opened her eyes, let out a long breath. “Okay,” Sandra said to herself, “let’s do this.”
She went back into the gymnasium, worked the crowd, made sure everyone had what they needed.
A woman from Motor Trend quietly asked Sandra whether she had an extra Arrival toy car. She had twin boys at home and... if she could have two? Sandra smiled understandingly. She’d been anticipating such a request. She slipped into a room off the gym, took an extra toy from a box of extras, and delivered it within a minute.
Just bought ourselves some goodwill from Motor Trend, she thought.
The man sitting at the mini-workstation beside the Motor Trend journalist raised a finger to catch Sandra’s attention. She stepped over, flashed a smile, and glanced at the lanyard hanging around his neck. It read:
BEN STAPLETON: WHEEL BASE TRENDS.
“Hey, Ben, nice to meet you,” Sandra said. “It’s been all emails up to now.”
The man nodded. “Nice to meet you, too.”
“Nice ferry ride over?” she asked.
“Oh, yes, lovely,” he said. “Listen, I heard you being asked for an extra model car.” He reached into his bag and pulled out the one he’d been given. “If anyone else wants a second one, they can have mine.”
“Oh,” she said, raising a palm. “I’ve got loads of extras, but that’s very kind of you. If you don’t want to take it, just leave it on the desk. Someone will grab it.”
“Okay,” he said. “Quite a buzz in the room.”
Sandra raised two crossed fingers — a “wish me luck” gesture — before moving on.
Brandon Kyle waggled his fingers at the public relations lady. Nice enough. Maybe even competent enough to bring off a standard news conference. But he wondered if she’d ever dealt with a real public relations crisis.
We’ll know soon enough.
Kyle had already inserted an Arrival-shaped stick into his laptop, and the screen of his open laptop was consumed with a dazzling display about the new car before settling down into various drop-down categories.