I don’t doubt that she’s ungracious when encountering yet another son our father doesn’t have, some stranger who gets more attention than we ever did. None of it is Lex’s fault but also not his business, and I tell him I regret if I’ve come across as indifferent or unkind on any occasion.
As I say it, I’m irked that I get blamed for my sister’s not-always-optimal behavior. But at least I’m getting used to it, don’t really have a choice. It’s not like I can let on when we swap places, tag teaming in ways that at first are off-putting.
“If you want to be my friend, Lex, you’re going to have to earn it,” I continue my lecture. “But right now, this is serious business. You’re in my custody, and we need to finish with your legal rights. Would you like another adult present?”
“No.”
“What about an attorney?”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not being funny. If you want a lawyer, you’ll get one even if you can’t afford it,” as I escort him through the Gantry’s parking lot. “Do you understand what I just said?”
“You read me my rights. Except you didn’t do it like on TV,” he says as we reach my SUV, and I give the signal to unlock it, my right hand concealed in my pocket.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t a TV show,” I open the front passenger’s door. “If it were, I’d change the channel.”
“How did you do that?” he climbs in.
“Do what?” I ask innocently, walking around to the other side.
“How did you unlock it without a key, a voice command, clapping your hands . . . ?”
“It’s a smart vehicle, saw me coming,” as I climb in.
I have no doubt he can tell by the solar paneled roof, the antennas, signal jammer, run-flat tires and thickness of the door that this isn’t a normal vehicle.
“And if you think you’re hacking into this thing, you got another think coming, Mister,” I make sure he knows who he’s dealing with, and we shut our doors, the engine starting, all the displays staying dark. “Buckle up, and don’t touch anything,” I add strictly as he ogles my new not-so-standard Chevy Tahoe, taking in the powered-off flat-screens front and back.
He alerts on the storage boxes, the joystick, the unusual pleathery upholstery and carbon fiber. No doubt Lex has deduced from the powerful engine that my Chase Car will give someone a run for their money.
“What’s it going to be? Do you want to talk?” I confront him, and we’re not going anywhere until I have answers. “Because you didn’t have much to say the other day,” alluding to his phone conversation with Carme while she pretended to be me. “Except to deny everything, to claim you’re as innocent as the driven snow,” repeating what Dick relayed earlier today.
“It’s not fair! I didn’t do anything!” Lex’s face is flushed to the roots of his fiery copper hair, his green eyes blazing.
“I guess I’ll be the judge of that after you tell me the truth,” is what I have to say about it. “That’s assuming you want to have an honest conversation. Or maybe you’d prefer I take you home and the courts will appoint a lawyer to represent you like I mentioned.”
“No!” he sulkily stares out his window as we sit in our same parking place near the main hangar.
The chain-link fence in front of us encloses a salvage yard of battered and mangled old planes, helicopters, a race car, all rusty and gutted of anything salvageable, riddled with optical location markers that remind me of bullet-hole decals. In the near background diesel engines rumble as a crane, a truck and other heavy equipment move into position at the splash basin.
Beyond are trees, a service road and a small landing airstrip for drones, then acres of windswept snowy fields and dense woods. Had Lex made it through all that to the campus’s western border, he could climb the fence. I’m not sure how he would have dealt with the barbed wire on top, and maybe he hadn’t thought that far.
But had he managed to reach Wythe Creek Road without serious injury, he would have been home-free except for the mile hike home.
“Anybody seeing you would have figured something’s wrong, a kid with no coat on walking along a highway as it’s getting dark,” I paint a picture for him. “The police would have grabbed you. Or maybe someone else would have, maybe someone up to no good. And even if you’d made it back to the house without being caught, then what?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugs his narrow shoulders.
Digging into my pocket for my phone as if it’s my only electronic resource, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to deny ART’s existence. My impulse is to ask for his assistance as usual but I can’t do that in front of Lex or hardly anyone. Not openly, and already I’m becoming technologically dependent and spoiled.
“Did you think we wouldn’t find you?” I have my phone in hand like a regular person who’s not bionic.
“I don’t know,” shrugging again.
“What was going through that head of yours?” I ask, trying to find the blasted recording icon without being obvious.
“That I had to get away,” he says. “I wasn’t thinking. It was self-defense,” he adds as I locate the app I need.
“By the way, where’s your coat?” I look him over, thin, disheveled and dirty in jeans that aren’t nearly warm enough.
His boots are rubber with leather uppers, and not suited for the conditions. He has on a generic gray hooded sweatshirt, no gloves, and I have a feeling his grandmother doesn’t do a lot of shopping.
19
LEX TELLS ME his coat is in the conference room at protective services headquarters. Leaving it behind when he fled adds credence to his claim that he was frightened, and nothing about his demeanor suggests he wasn’t.
“Did you bring anything else with you this afternoon?” I inquire as we talk inside my truck, sitting in our same spot. “What about your backpack?”
“They took it from me at the rocket launch when they found the phone that isn’t mine. The phone someone put in there to set me up!”