Page 72 of Exit Party

“Correct. What you’re going to do, Detective, is you’re going to speak with both Kareem Fayeds, first the one you know and then his double, and see what you can come up with.”

“You think I’ll care more and do a better job because Nico’s a friend of mine.” I would not cry. My heart was still. I want to dive off a boat into freezing water. I want to float in the dark until I feel nothing at all. I want to dive and keep diving into fathomless deep.

“Yes,” Alberto said, “because you’re human. Your friend has disappeared. See if you can find out where she went.”

On the walk to the first interrogation, I tried to let my mind go blank and still. An interesting challenge here was that I disliked Nico’s husband, and had always tried in small ways to avoid him. I hated the thought of two Kareems in the world. What I wanted to know, because this was less painful than thinking about Nico, was how similar these two men might be.

Studio Five was one of the newer interrogation rooms. It had been designed to look like a living room from some decades previous, from an unfathomably reckless era when houses in Los Angeles had been made of wood. Two armchairs faced a sofa, with an old wooden coffee table between. The wall art was all framed nature photography. Nico’s husband was sitting in one of the armchairs. He was slumped, dark circles under his eyes. I’d been entertaining wild thoughts—perhaps the experiment had been successful, actually? Perhaps Nico had staged her own disappearance and the technology had in fact worked as intended and she was perfectly safe somewhere, outside of the State?—but when he looked up at me, that last flicker of hope was snuffed out. He looked devastated. He looked like a man who’d just lost his wife.

“Ibari,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m Service,” I said gently.

“I didn’t know.”

“No one did. I have a convincing cover story.” When had I last seen him? At Nico’s holiday party, months ago. Did Service know that I disliked him? Possible but unlikely, I thought. What I’d come to understand over the years was that although Service was extensive, Service was fallible, because Service was people.

“Why were you assigned to me?” He wasn’t just tired, I realized. He was dazed, which meant this was an important time. A state of shock can be useful for interrogations.

“Because Nico’s one of my closest friends.” I sat across from him, in the other armchair. “But I’m also here for strictly professional reasons. I’m good at my job.”

“Where are my children?”

“Samir and Marlowe are right where you left them,” I said. “They’re with Nico’s parents.”

“I’d like to see them.”

“I talk to Nico regularly.” I couldn’t help myself. “My understanding is that you often go days at a time without seeing your children.”

“I mean, I work late sometimes, sure,” he said. “I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”

“Oh, my point is just that Marlowe and Samir are used to not seeing you for a few days at a time,” I said, “so I wouldn’t worry about them too much, for the moment.”

“I’m tired,” he said.

“I know. Walk me through it again,” I said, “from the beginning. I know you’ve discussed this before, with different people, but sometimes details can emerge with the fourth or fifth retelling.”

“Or ninth or tenth?”

“Or eleventh, or twentieth.” You have no power, that was the thing I didn’t need to say to him. He glared at me, then deflated.

“Okay.” He sighed. “Fine. From where?”

“The last time you saw your wife.”

4

TRANSCRIPT

I don’t know where my wife went. But there was a lot of joy, in those last minutes before Nico disappeared. On the day we decided to run the experiment, we’d hardly slept. Nico and I lay awake most of the night before, just talking about how our lives were going to change. Saraya told us she’d done the same. We knew how much this technology could benefit the State, potentially, and we were terrified of our technology falling into the wrong hands. There are no records of our plan, written or otherwise, because we’d been careful to only discuss it in person. We were convinced of the safety of what we were doing.

What can you tell me about your technology?

Respectfully, you’re not a physicist.

Give me the nontechnical version, as best you can.

We’d developed a technology involving quantum entanglement, by which we’d been able to teleport mice, rabbits, and a dog across the length of a room. Obviously a very short distance, but the point was proof of concept. Our setup was fairly simple. There were three platforms at one end of the room, and three at the other. So we’d transported objects and then animals from the A platforms to the B platforms. Over a hundred experiments.