The Wire Hanger

Chapter 35

Downstairs in the kitchen, I refused to look at anyone. I’d pulled the lead doors shut behind me after running in there, but of course my mother simply opened them up again. She did shoo away the other onlookers, who seemed anxious to discuss what we’d seen; the only people I would allow inside were Jezebel and Noah. I wouldn’t have barred the Professor, either – it was his house – but he had discreetly gathered the others somewhere else, where they could chat to their heart’s content.

            I sat in silence, staring down at the kitchen table. Hannah would have offered me a cup of tea, which would have at least given me something to hold onto. My mother was next to me, not holding my hand but leaning towards me so that I could feel the warmth of her shoulder. Jezebel sat across from us, and Noah leaned against the fridge, one foot kicked up behind him, and an expression I couldn’t identify on his face.

            They all seemed to be waiting for me to speak. I let the long minutes tick by, and then when it became too much I said, “This is bad. Isn’t it.”

            “It isn’t…great,” said Jezebel, as tactfully as she could manage.

            “How did they even broadcast in here?” asked my mother. “I thought you had safeguards against that sort of thing.” Her voice was shaking very slightly.

            “I do,” said Noah, frustrated. “They must have found a way around it.”

            “I don’t understand what this means,” said my mother. “They saw her up there?”

            “Maybe,” said Jezebel, “or maybe they caught it later, reviewing their security tapes.”

            I stayed quiet. Part of me still felt like I was dangling there, hundreds of metres above the ground. I could still feel the swoop of my stomach as the rope lurched. The idea of being seen while all of this was going on, unbeknownst to me…it made me feel even sicker.

            “Even if they reviewed it later,” my mother said slowly, “wouldn’t they have seen what she’d done?”

            Noah ground his fist into his forehead. “The box. Maybe they interfered with the broadcast?”

            But Jezebel was shaking her head. “They didn’t interfere. I’ve heard from people on the ground, who saw it. Real time. You got it out there, baby.”

            “It makes no sense,” he said.

            Then I said, “They wanted us to broadcast it.”

            “What? Why would they want that?”
            “I don’t know,” I said, “but it’s the only thing that makes sense. They didn’t stop us. Maybe they just wanted to see what we were going to do.”

            Later that day, after some bracing oatmeal and reassurances from Jethro that he wasn’t going to let any terrible old Protectors snatch me away, no sir, Noah motioned me towards the stairs, away from the rest of the adults. “Let me show you something,” he said.

            I followed him up to his room, where the bulk of his equipment stared at me, blank and powerless.

            “I shut most of it off,” he said. “Have to figure out how they got in here, so the less attention I draw, the better. But look.” He pulled something up on a tablet. There was a small blinking red light in the corner of what looked like a map.