The Masked Truth(8)

I know how hostage situations work. My dad was on the SWAT team for a few years, before he decided it took him away from his family too much. But I know the stats—fatalities and even injuries are extremely rare. These guys want money from Aaron’s dad. They won’t get it by killing kids Mr. Highgate doesn’t even know.

Does that make me relax? Just chill and wait my turn, no big deal? Absolutely not. Because no amount of logic and reasoning will change the fact that I’m against a wall, about to be frisked by armed captors. But I can suck it in enough to exchange semi-genuine smiles with Maria as our captors go the line, taking the cell phones from our counselors and checking the rest of us for contraband weapons.

When they reach the boy beside me, he turns around so sharply that the guns fly up and my breath catches.

“We already went through a metal detector,” he says.

“Yeah,” X-Files says. “And we’re going to check you again, because metal detectors aren’t perfect. Turn around and put—”

“You want to check me out? Fine. Take me to another room and I’ll give you my clothes.”

“This isn’t airport security. You don’t get options here. Turn around—”

X-Files reaches for the boy’s shoulder, and he jerks away with “Don’t touch me.”

“Gideon …” Lorenzo calls from down from the line.

“Cool it, kid,” Maria whispers.

“Don’t tell me—”

Predator and Cantina are on Gideon before he can finish. They pin him to the wall, and he’s shaking so hard, his eyes filling like he’s going to cry, and I catch his gaze, but when I do, he glowers and turns the other way.





MAX: CONCEIVABILITY


Conceivability: the capacity of being imagined or grasped mentally.



When Max first sees the alien with Riley, the only conceivable answer is that his meds aren’t working. No. Not again. I will not go through this again. I’ll— You’ll what, Max?

Nothing.

No, really, Maximus. When you say you won’t go through it again, do you mean—?

Bugger off.

We need to talk about this.

No, he doesn’t. Moving right along, there’s an alien in the hallway, and he’s quite certain he knows what that means. His latest cocktail of meds is not working. Oh, yes? he thought it was. Was so certain it was, but that was just another sign that it wasn’t. Delusions of a world where his bloody meds work, and he can get back to living a bloody normal life.

Ha-ha. Very funny, old boy. There is no normal life for you. Not anymore. Just aliens holding pretty girls hostage. Perhaps this is a new subtype of delusion—one where you get to play the knight in shining armor. Well, hop to it, then. Slay the alien. Win the girl.

That’s when the alien speaks, and Max realizes it’s a man in a mask. That a perfectly ordinary criminal is holding Riley hostage. His next thought: Thank God, it’s not the meds. Followed by: Bloody hell, there’s a man holding Riley hostage.

The kidnapper takes them back in the main room, and they go through the “Everybody against the wall, hands on your heads” and the pat-downs and the panic and the “Oh my God, I can’t believe this is happening.”

You and me both.

Then they’re sitting on the floor, listening, and Max is trying to process what the hostage-takers are saying. It’s not that he can’t understand them. They came to the States a year ago, him and Mum—I think what you need, Maximus, is a change of scenery, and what I won’t mention, dear boy, is that by “change of scenery” I really mean let’s both run across the ocean and find someplace where no one knows what you did.

A year here means it isn’t as if these men speak a foreign language. He understands their words just fine. The problem is that he has to keep fighting against the voice in his head that whispers this isn’t real, that the meds actually aren’t working, that, yes, the alien heads do appear to be masks but that’s only because the logic center of his brain hasn’t completely shut down during this particular hallucination.

Three men in alien masks. The one speaking is the man who grabbed Riley. He wears a bulbous gray head. One of the others looks like a cross between an insect and a robot … with braids. Max vaguely recalls seeing it before. A film, maybe? He isn’t really into films. Reading is his thing. Reading and writing—wild stories that everyone always told him were so creative and vivid and how did you ever come up with that, Max my boy, and that’s some serious imagination there, and you’ll be a writer one day, mark my words, a famous one like Stephen King or Dean Koontz, and you’ll put me in your book then, won’t you, ha-ha.

No one says that to him anymore. Now it’s: Hmm, there’s some disturbing stuff here, son, and is this what you see in your head, and did you really dream this up or were you documenting one of your hal-oo-sin-aa-shuns. That’s how his American doctor says it. Hal-oo-sin-aa-shuns. Like one of those words you read but never have to say out loud, and when you do, it’s not quite right.

Bloody hell, Maximus. Focus.

Can’t. Sorry. One of the symptoms. Disorganized thought. Look it up.

No, Max. That’s just you. Always has been. Brain flitting like a hummingbird on speed.

Because it has always been there. Waiting to pop up like a funhouse skeleton. You thought you were normal, kid? Surprise!