“Ready to save the universe,” Jackie said in sync with Jared. It was another private joke between the two.
Her father smiled at her, and that was all it took. Jackie melted into his arms and hugged him like she would never let go. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself clutching her father. Then her brain framed it in a television screen. She let go. The presence of the cameras was overpowering.
“I’m sorry, Daddy, about everything. But I don’t want them watching us.” She kept her eyes on her father.
He seemed confused for a minute before letting out a big breath of air. “Yeah, you’re right.” Jared looked up at the camera in Jackie’s bedroom and patted her knee. “Come down whenever you’re ready. I’ll make you breakfast.” Jackie grabbed her father’s arm and kissed him on the cheek.
***
Glio watched as Jared and six-year-old Jackie played superheroes. He could see in the construction of the memory some small sense of regret that Jared and Deirdre were raising only female children, and a small sense of guilt that Jared, in his desire for a son, had made Jackie something of a tomboy. But the feeling was fleeting, ephemeral, like the barest hint of piano buried deep in the mix of some overproduced pop song.
Jared and Jackie had taken all the pillows and cushions off the living room sofa, a two-piece sectional with chocolate-colored suede, and built a fort. Jared had used blankets to create a roof and was squirming on his belly in and out of the makeshift structure, following Jackie’s lead.
Glio could hear Megan in the other room; she was talking to an imaginary friend, a princess of some sort. The sound triggered a secondary and different pang of guilt in Jared, that he wasn’t paying enough attention to his younger daughter. Glio was amazed as he watched his host file the feeling away for future reference, as if he were putting a folder in a drawer, knowing that he should revisit it later but not giving it enough importance to remember to do so.
“What do we do now, Snowflake?” Jared asked.
“We have to stop the bad guys,” Jackie whispered. “They’re right outside the fort. They goed away but came back when we came in here.”
“They went away,” Jared corrected.
“They went away but came back!” Glio saw how awestruck Jared was at the complexity and fervor of his daughter’s imagination. It was his first real hint at the enormity of the loss the Stone family was facing. But as Jared had filed away his own guilt, so, too, did Glio.
“So we’re superheroes?” Jared asked, fully engrossed in the game.
“Yeah, we’re superheroes!” Jackie whispered with gusto.
“What are our names?”
“You’re, you’re, you’re Daddy-Man!” Glio was infused with a rush of oxytocin. It was a wonderful feeling that made him want more.
“I love it,” Jared whispered. “But who are you? Jackie-Girl?”
“No, silly,” she answered. “I’m Snowflake! S-N-O-W-F-L-A-K-E.” Jackie had just learned to spell the word, and for the past two days had been doing so every time she said it aloud. For Glio, another massive hit of oxytocin.
Glio understood that this was one of Jared’s most treasured memories. Each time his host recalled it, the memory would fill his host with feelings of joy, warmth, and stability. Glio felt almost guilty as he absorbed every frame of it into his growing mass.
***
Ethan Overbee stared in disbelief as the chairman of the ATN board of directors dressed him down. Thaddeus St. Claire sat to the chairman’s left, shaking his bowed head in sorrow, feeling the pain of his protégé’s failure.
The goddam fraud, Ethan thought to himself. We’re supposed to believe he had nothing to do with this?
ATN was getting roughed up by the media in the wake of the public relations debacle that was the murder of Jared Stone’s dog, and the board was taking it out on Ethan.
“We put our neck out there on this one, Overbee,” the chairman said, “and the jackals are sharpening their fangs. How the hell did that man get into Mr. Stone’s house? Where was security?”
“That wasn’t just any man, Roger.” Ethan was the only employee at the network to call the chairman by his first name. Everyone else called him Mr. Stern, or just “sir.” Ethan felt it was important to establish himself as an equal early on in their relationship, and Roger Stern, fifty-seven, ulcer-prone, overweight, and perpetually dour (known to most of his underlings as Jabba the Stern), had tolerated it. “It was Sherman Kingsborough. Think of the publicity.”
“Think of the publicity?” The chairman was incredulous.
“When we go back on the air tomorrow night, every person in America will tune in. Life and Death will be the highest rated show in the history of—”
“We’re not going to be on the air tomorrow night, Ethan.” Thad St. Claire’s voice was gentle but firm, decisive.