"So, I was doing some research on Isabelle," Everett says. "I found something kind of crazy."
I look over at Everett with a squinted eye, wanting to laugh. "Dude, I know everything there is to know about Isabelle."
"I don't think you do," he says.
"She's the last unfound apprentice to work for Dr. Phillips. What else could there be?"
"She has something Phillips didn't have."
"What is it?" I continue trying to pull the information from him, but he’d rather dangle it over my head like this is a game.
"It's Darkest Perception," he says.
"You think I don’t know that? What the hell do you think we’ve been looking for throughout the last ten months?" I argue. "I explained all of this to you. We were given written information about that, and you’re telling me it’s news to you?"
"Let me finish," Everett snaps. "She helped develop the ensemble—she didn’t just assist in testing, she was one of the music theorists behind it."
I stop walking to lean up against the wall. "Jesus." I knew she had knowledge of Darkest Perception, the documentation and all that, but I wasn’t aware she was part of the development. Apprentices don’t typically take part in the facilitation of methodology when it comes to psychology. They can offer their opinions and suggestions but rarely have their hands in the meat of the development.
"I know," Everett says, proudly.
"How did you find this information?" I ask him.
"When I brought her breakfast the other morning, I saw this black thing sticking out from beneath her pillow when she got up to use the bathroom. It was an SD card." Beside wanting to punch the smirk off of Everett's face and the fact that he's been trying to get in her pants since the moment he laid eyes on her, I'm having trouble understanding how this could be the case. She was only Dr. Phillips' scapegoat. At least, that’s what I was told.
"So, she knows you took it, you realize that right?" I snap at him, feeling stress coagulate in my head.
"I don’t think she noticed it was gone," he says.
"If it was under her pillow, that means she was sleeping with it, which means she probably doesn't let it out of her sight for more than a second. If it was gone for any amount of time, she would have noticed," I argue. "You are aware she can kill either of us with little effort, right?"
"But, you said she was Harley," Everett jests.
"Wait, how does that SD card prove she was one of the developers?"
"How else would she have the hard file?" Everett asks.
"That’s a real weak assumption we cannot go on, nor does it matter. What’s important is that this documentation exists, and it’s within reach. I don’t care what part she had in all of it. She was working for Philips and doing what he told her to do."
"Trust me, she was one of the developers," Everett says.
"How do you know?" I ask again. "Seriously, you’re pissing me off."
"You’re right. I’m just assuming. Forget it. It was a joke."
"How the hell are you joking around right now. If Agent Roberts finds out we found the documentation files and haven't turned them in yet, we're done."
"So, D.C. ... probably isn't the greatest idea," Everett says.
"Agent Roberts demanded that I be there tonight," I tell him. "I don’t have a choice."
"And we're bringing 'Harley?'" he questions me again.
"Versus ... letting her run off while we're gone?" I don’t even know what I’m saying. I should just let her run off, but at this point, I’m not sure if she’d be safer or not. Agent Roberts is probably onto me somehow, and until I know what he wants tonight, I can’t let her out of my sight.
Ten Months Earlier
Everett pulls up in front of the unemployment building in his beat up Civic, blasting some techno crap I’ve always hated. I whip open the passenger-side door and slide inside. "Thanks for coming to get me, man."
Everett places his hand on my shoulder and looks at me with sincerity. "We have no family, so we stick together, bro." I appreciate what he's saying. We've both had a shitty road, found each other in our last foster house when we were seventeen, lived there for about a year, then moved out within a month of each other since we both turned eighteen around the same time. That’s when we tried to figure out life on our own. It was a bumpy road for both of us, but seven years later, we're still standing somehow. "You're wasting no time, huh?" he asks, looking past me toward the unemployment building.
"I have no time to waste. I already have an interview set up for six tonight."
"No shit," he says, pulling out into the slowly moving traffic.
"Yeah, I don't know about it, but we'll see. Finding a job should be interesting since I’m twenty-seven, spent the last two years in a prison setting, and stupidly job hopped for seven years before that."
"Well, I hope you get it." Everett is a compulsive driver, checking every mirror over and over so many times, I wonder if he ever looks at the road in front of him.
"Is someone following you?" I ask. Regardless of the OCD nature in which he’s always driven, he seems paranoid, and that part is unlike him. "You didn't get into some kind of trouble while I was gone, did you?"
"Nah, nah, it’s all good." He's a lying fool.
We get to his pad and hike up the three flights of stairs before he shoves a key into his lock, then punches the heels of his palms into the door so it will open. The sound of metal scratching metal screams loudly within the hall as the door flies inward. "Some WD-40 will take care of that," I tell him.
"Yeah," he grunts. "I’ll get to it." We walk inside, and I was completely unaware that he’s living in a studio apartment now. "This is my place."
"It's nice, bro, real nice." I'll claim that one bare spot on the floor over there and hope it isn't reserved for someone else.
"There's a couch you can take," he says, pointing across the room. I look in the direction he's pointing at, but I don't see a couch, so I glance back at him with a question. "It's just under those boxes and shit."
Everett. Some things will never change. As I'm walking toward the heap of trash sitting on an apparent couch, the time on the microwave catches my eye. I had no clue how late in the day it already is. I only have a little over an hour before I need to get my ass back downtown for the interview.
I look down at what I'm wearing, while tossing some of his boxes to the side. "I'll assume you don’t, but do you happen to have a sports coat or something I could borrow for tonight?" Everett has never believed in dressing up. He thinks if people don’t appreciate him leaving home fully clothed, they can go to hell. It’s been one of those statements I just nod my head at. I’m sure he’ll grow out of that thought someday. Maybe.
Everett flops down onto his unmade bed. "Why would you be so quick to assume I don't have a sports coat?"
I don't even see a closet, which probably means that whatever he does have for clothes are balled up in a pile somewhere on the floor. "Just a hunch."
"Nah, I don't," he says, grabbing a magazine off his makeshift, cardboard nightstand.
"No problem," I say. While I appreciate having a place to sleep at least, I have nothing to my name, and I’m already setting myself up for failure by going to this interview in jeans, a black tee, and work boots. I’ve never had a great outlook on my future, but my plans weren’t supposed to be like this.
"Want to have a late dinner?" Everett asks.
"What were you thinking? I mean, I don’t have any money, man, so I'm not good for much at the moment."
"I told you, I got your back, Ax."
"I'll get you back as soon as I can," I tell him.
"I know you're good for it."
"What are you doing with yourself now, anyway? Are you still doing the paramedic thing?"