Alpha Incorporated

IV - xii GO TO YOUR BOSOM

Lucy is devastated. Like holy crap, not only is Isabella missing, but Lucy might be implicated. What if she is dead, or abducted? That seems to be the angle the police investigation is taking, ever since she mentioned Angelo Lord. Is it possible that the first picture they Googled of Angelo Lord was the shot from Friday's media event, and it had Isabella standing in the background? Tough luck for Lord. No, good luck for Isabella, she hopes. Lucy really doesn't know what to think. It is all so unbelievable. Like, holy crap!

The police have left now, and she is trying to make sense of things. Isabella's roommate Franny has left too. Going home to Seattle, she told Lucy as she was throwing some bags into a cab. The girl's apartment is still sealed off with tape. She can't even get in there, and she owns the place. Lucy can't imagine there is anything left that the cops haven't taken with them. Including Isabella's computer. It won't be long before they read Lucy's contribution to the whole affair.

At least Lucy still has her computer. She scrolls through her newsfeeds. Everything is about Angelo. He is a big star now, under the big top of the media. Lucy clicks on a story that has a picture of her house in the background. She knows that if Angelo Lord wasn't tied to this, there wouldn't be a story at all. Just a missing girl. There would be the usual missing person alert notices, probably a bit more television coverage than usual because she is so cute. The news will feature a picture of a good-looking girl; she will likely get the spot at the top of the front page, above the masthead, where there is always room for a pretty face. She will be the pretty face behind the T.V. announcer's pretty face. At least Isabella has that going for her. Sucks if you are ugly, an immigrant, native American, or a dude.

There is a live feed being broadcast on the local news channel. Lucy clicks to enlarge the frame to full screen. The scene is outside the police station. The woman reporter, the same one who tried to get Lucy to speak to her, is talking. Lucy turns up the audio.

"... is still inside. We anticipate that a spokesperson from the Mountain View Police will be making a statement soon. Sarah, we imagine that they may announce that Mr. Lord has been arrested, and will make a statement as to which charges they will indict Mr. Lord."

The camera moves to the side to pick up the movement of three men, walking quickly past the reporter. They are dressed in suits, have briefcases and look important as they shove through the crowd of cameras, microphones, smartphones and raised arms.

"Excuse me, excuse me, are you here to represent Mr. Lord?" come the calls from the press, addressing the men who push their way to the police station doors.

Blonde Barbie turns back to face the camera, presumably operated by the man Lucy now knows personally as the Comic Book Dude. Barbie puts a finger in her ear and squints. That must be Sarah on the other end of her finger.

"Yes, Sarah, we believe that those men entering the station were more of Lord's team of lawyers. We know that the District Attorney has been meeting with police for the last hour, so, like I said, we anticipate a statement soon."

The feed cuts back to another pretty woman, this one a brunette with the same long hair as Blonde Barbie, at the anchor desk, her blouse cut low. And, sure enough, the image in the background is sweet little Isabella Measures. How is it that someone is in a town for little more than a week, and they have a library of photos to go through? The picture in the back shows a young-looking girl, sweet as all-American apple pie, as white as white can be. The photo is a posed headshot, maybe as a bridesmaid or in some other wholesome role.

As the anchor woman recaps the day's events, the photos in the background start to change, and a sequence of images and video clips loop: police cars with lights flashing in front of a mansion, Lucy's house, policemen talking on radios, the main gate of Alpha, a still of Lord in a business suit, a clip from the event at the Geary. Below, numbers and letters scroll: stock prices or baseball scores, she can't tell the difference.

"This is an incredible situation unfolding here today in Mountain View. This is what we know so far: the CEO of Alpha International Incorporated, Angelo Lord, has been brought in for questioning in the disappearance of a young female intern at Alpha, Isabella Measures. While the search continues for Miss Measures, authorities have turned their sights to the rocky coastline north of San Francisco, in the area south of Jenner. Crews and helicopters are combing the waters for what we can only assume at this time is to recover a body."

Lucy falls back into her sofa. Dead? They think she might be dead. She stares at the computer screen, the colorful picture of a smiling girl, hair pulled back into a ponytail, probably taken at a church picnic somewhere in that perfect small town, far away from the California coast. She feels sick.

"Sources tell Channel 5 News that there is evidence linking Mr. Lord to Miss Measures on the night of her disappearance. No charges have been laid and at this time Mr. Lord is only considered a to be a Person of Interest. We will have more on this story later, when the Mountain View Police are expected to make an announcement. We'll be right back, after these messages."

Lucy knows something isn't right. It doesn't make sense, she knows that, but there is something else missing here. It is the belief that Isabella is dead—that is what is missing, the belief. Lucy knows, just knows inside, that Isabella is alright. She doesn't know why she feels that way, since Lucy is not one to believe in psychic clairvoyance. Actually, she rarely trusts her own intuition, preferring to play things cautiously and watch how events unfold, rather than acting on instinct. But now, there is a gut feeling that Lucy wants to believe. She wants to believe that Isabella is alright. Maybe that is what it is: she just wants to believe that story, because the other options are too sickening to comprehend.

Lucy checks her Twitter. It is alive with tweets about the Lord case. Trending: #violenceagainstwomen, #AngeloLord, #ArrestLord. In the court of social media, this guy is already tried, convicted and sentenced. She opens her Facebook: same. Posts are everywhere about the case, from newsfeeds, to friends reposting articles and opinion pieces, to memes. There are a few of the bearded interesting man saying, "I don't always have one night stands, but when I do, I throw her body off a cliff." Lucy can't imagine what Isabella's parents must be thinking. Those poor people. And Claude. She wonders if he even considers that he might have had a role in this.

She looks at her notifications. Lucy doesn't use Facebook much anymore, nor do her friends. For her it is mainly to keep in touch with her mother. So it seems odd that there is a friend request notification. She clicks on it, and sees a thumbnail of an attractive man in a lab coat, safety glasses on his forehead, a blur of components and machinery in the background. She doesn't recognize the face at first, but the name is like a kick to her chest: Dr. James Tyrell, Casper Duke Research Chair, MIT.

She remembers most his smile. The way it turns up more on one side, like he is smirking because he is amused that he knows something that she doesn't, but that is okay, because she trusts him. And his chin. Who notices a chin? It isn't especially square, nor is it pointed; it isn't particularly outstanding, other than it is his chin. James, James—there you are, James.

In the ten years since they parted, on that drizzly day on the platform of the BART train, Lucy has stayed true to her self-imposed ban on contacting him. She never looked him up, never creeped him, never Googled him. Occasionally, his name came up in a report or press release from Alpha, but Lucy kept her vow. She might pretend he was in her bed at night, she might imagine asking him for his opinion now and then, she might dream that he was still with her, but those are her private thoughts, and she is entitled to the secret pleasure that they provide. What she is not entitled to is the external: she never mentions him, never breaks that wall. They tried to make it work, she knows that, but distance and economics conspire against young lovers these days, and, as she always tells herself, it is better this way.

But now he has broken the wall. A stupid friend request. From the real James Tyrell. She wonders if he is anything like the guy she meets in her dreams. He doesn't look much different. Same smile, same chin. Fuck, James, fuck.

Of course she clicks accept.

And writes on his timeline: "Hey."