The Collective(60)

I return to the open Kaya chat and scroll back until I find the posts from the breast reconstruction victim’s mother. Her number is 0517, which, when you think about it, is quite close to my own. But she doesn’t live close to me. Nor does she live close to Edward Duval, who spent his entire professional life in New York State. In her earlier posts, which date back to months before I joined the group, there are references to a hospital in Huntington Beach, to a shady lawyer from San Pedro, to her daughter’s ashes scattered just off Catalina Island. 0517, her daughter, that horrible plastic surgeon. All of them are from Southern California.

Maybe Duval did something else, something I haven’t been able to find information about, and his own child’s killing had been a tragic coincidence. Maybe his wife honestly did commit suicide, and it was out of guilt over the bad thing her husband did or she did or they did together. Maybe Edward meant something else when he said, You’re one of them. I have learned at this point not to always trust my instincts.

But then, again, it all seems pretty obvious.

I open a private message thread with 0001, but I don’t know what to say to her. I decide to start with the facts.


0417: Assignment completed.



I stare at the screen for a long time, expecting her to explain, or at least to say something. But she doesn’t. I open another thread.


0417: What did Edward Duval do to deserve that?

0001: What did I tell you when you asked me the same thing about Richard Ashley Shawger?



I shake my head. “This is different,” I say. As though she can hear me.


0001: The collective targets no one who doesn’t deserve to be targeted.

0417: That doesn’t answer my question.

0001 is typing . . .

0001: Have you not learned enough to trust us by now?



I pound my fist against my desk. I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I type very quickly, my fingers slamming into the keys.


0417: Here’s what I think. I think Natalie Duval was in the collective. She told her husband. You killed them both because he was going to go to the police.

0001: No.

0417: Then tell me what he did. Tell me what she did. Whose child did they kill to deserve what you gave them?

0001: What WE gave them.



“Stop it!”


0001 is typing . . .



Her response appears on the screen, and I read it once, twice, three times, my jaw dropped open, my eyes salty from not blinking.


0001: On January 18, you followed Duval from the train station. That wasn’t part of your assignment. And if he saw you and identified you, it could have endangered the collective.



My hands are shaking so much, I can barely get the words out.


0417: How do you know I followed him?

0001: Instead of punishing you, I made it so that your misstep worked in our favor.



“How do you know I followed him?!” I shout it at the screen. A new message appears.


0001: That’s how this collective works. We gain strength from our weaknesses. Unless they are the type of weakness that cannot be forgiven.



“Are you watching me?”


0001 is typing . . .

0001: I value you as a member of the collective. So I share more with you than I should. I can’t think of anyone else I would have told about Shawger. But I told you—in order to assure you that you can put your faith in us. And now it seems I have to do it again.



Ellipses pulse on my screen. I sit perfectly still, waiting. She knows I followed Duval. Does she know I met with Violet Langford? Does she know how much information Wendy and I exchanged? Does she have me bugged? Chipped? Has she installed cameras in my house? It makes me want to close the laptop, get rid of the Tor server, slam the door on the collective entirely. But how could I do that? I’ve drowned a man. Played a part in the deaths of three more that I know of and still more that I don’t. I am invested.


0001: I know about Claire Duval. I am sorry for her parents’ loss. But experiencing personal tragedy doesn’t exempt you if you’ve caused someone else’s and have gone unpunished by the system.



I take a deep breath, count to ten. . . .


0417: I researched Edward Duval. I can’t find one instance of malpractice.

0001: MEDICAL malpractice.

0417: ?

0001: Go to the main chat. Search for 1225.



I close my private messages, go to the main chat page, and type “1225” into the search box. It takes me a while to find what 0001 is talking about because, as it turns out, 1225 posts on this page a lot, empathizing with the mothers as they tell their stories in particularly graphic, visceral ways. She did it with me when I told mine . . . 1225: Or try a cut to the carotid, in front of a mirror. Make it shallow so he can see it happen. Then chop off his head.

Of the many angry women on this page—and I am one of them—1225 stands out. We are all full of rage, yes. But she seems consumed by it.

I scroll back several months before I finally find the post where 1225 tells her own story. Like the rest of us, she doesn’t mention names or a specific time frame. But she’s very clear about what happened. Her eight-year-old son was bullied to death—chased to the edge of a cliff by a group of older boys, who scattered and ran when he fell over the edge. It was deemed an accident, with none of the boys even standing trial, let alone going to jail. But most all of them apologized. Most all of them.