Trade Me (Cyclone #1)(82)

“Man, who put you in charge? What were they thinking?” Suddenly Adam frowns and points at the screen. “Wait. Who did put you in charge? Isn’t Blake running things over there?”

Yu frowns. “Blake? Blake isn’t here. I thought Blake was with you.”

I feel a cold little chill.

“No,” Adam says. “He’s not.” The two fall into silence.

“Wait,” my mother says. “Doesn’t he know where Blake is?”

“Of course he does.” I’m reassuring myself as much as I’m reassuring her. “These things are fully scripted.” They almost always are. Blake wouldn’t have told me to watch the launch if it was going to end up a complete clusterf*ck. Right?

“If he’s not at the launch,” Adam says. “Where is he? Dang it. If only we had built a video-capable device that handled robust four-way calling.”

The dang it convinces me this is scripted. Dang is not the word Adam Reynolds would reach for on his own.

On cue, the watch beeps.

Incoming call: Blake Reynolds. “Oh wait,” Adam says. “We did.”

The audience laughs, playing along, and the new video resolves into Blake.

He’s taken off his glasses, but his hair is still disheveled. He smiles broadly. “Hey, Dad. Lisa. David. Internet.”

“Blake, where the hell are you?”

“About that…” Blake smiles. “So, there’s this really cool feature we haven’t shown you yet with the Vortex video. We’ve shown you that the camera will adjust to follow your face, no matter how you move your hands. But it turns out, um.” He grins. “Sometimes a picture is worth a million words. Before now, when someone asked you over the phone where you were, you’d have to answer with a description.” He beams at the screen. “For instance, I could say, ‘Hi, Dad! I’m in jail!’”

The audience laughs disbelievingly.

“Or,” Blake says, “you can tap the edge of the watch, telling the camera to go into scenery pan mode. And then you can show everyone where you really are.”

His video shifts to an all-too familiar view of a bare cell.

“Which,” Blake’s voice continues, “it turns out is…still jail. Sorry.”

There’s a single high-pitched gurgle of laughter, quickly curtailed as it becomes obvious that Blake is serious. I’m leaning forward. I don’t know where this is going, what they’re planning to do with it.

“Dude,” Adam says with an exaggerated clap of his hand to his heart, “are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

That draws a wave of laughter.

“Well,” Blake shoots back, “at least if I do, I know you’re in the right place to get the very best of care.”

Another wave of laughter.

“After all,” Blake says with a grin, “you are wearing a device with real-time heart rate monitoring.”

“You can’t say that.” Adam holds up a finger. “The FDA has not approved that statement. Also, I pulled up the record of my heart rate during the attack. It doesn’t show a single useful thing.” He sighs. “That would have been good publicity.”

Blake shakes his head. “You must be getting old. You can’t even have a heart attack right.”

“You see that?” Adam points a finger at the screen. “Shifting the blame back to me already. You’re not off the hook. Want to explain what you’re doing in jail?”

“It’s a long story.”

Adam raises an eyebrow and points to the IV pole behind him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

There’s another wave of good-natured laughter.

“Fine.” Blake sighs. “It started because my girlfriend broke up with me.”

Someone in the audience lets out a protracted Awww; someone else yells something that comes out indistinctly over the feed.

“I heard that,” Blake says. “Don’t talk about her that way. I know it looks like she broke up with me just before a huge launch when my dad was in the hospital. But I don’t blame her for it, and by the time I’m done here, neither will you. Let me set the scene for you. It’s two in the morning. My father has just had a heart attack. The ambulance lights are receding in the distance. And I am doing what any good son would do under the circumstances.”

Adam doesn’t say anything.

And me? I hold my breath. I know these things are supposed to be true constructions, but I also know that Blake won’t tell the real truth. They aren’t going there. They wouldn’t.

“Which,” Blake says smoothly, “is this: I’m gathering up my dad’s cocaine.”

Holy f*ck. They did. There is dead silence from the crowd. I set my hand on the screen, my head spinning.

True construct is one thing. This? This is too real. I’m not sure if I’m looking at the truth or a fake. I’m not sure what I’m looking at, and I’m living it.

“This might be a good time to mention,” Adam says with a growl, “that I have a problem.”

I don’t even know what to think.

“So I put all this in the car, my girlfriend drives me to the hospital, and I am distracted by the fact that my dad had a heart attack, and also happens to have a cocaine problem. So I leave, and um.” Blake shrugs. “Yeah. There’s still cocaine in the car. Which wouldn’t be a problem, but she gets pulled over by the cops, who find it. She spends six hours in handcuffs.” He makes a face. “See? I told you not to blame her for breaking up with me.”