The Vault of Dreamers (16 page)

Paige cleared her throat. “I’d say our hot kitchen guy has a sordid little past,”
she said.

13

GORGE ON FORGE

“BE QUIET,” JANICE
said.

I was stunned. I hurt for Linus. I wanted to watch the app again and go back to those
black-and-white pictures. I wanted to track down where the series had come from and
skewer the person who had shot them all. Still worse, I wanted to know how far down
Linus was naked. My cheeks were burning, and I felt the shame of trespassing into
some horribly private mess.

Paige gingerly pulled the phone out of my hand. “I didn’t know it would find that
sequence,” she said. “You know that, right?”

I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I wasn’t completely
naïve, either. Orly had said something nasty about Linus being catnip for Otis. I
remembered him up in Dean Berg’s penthouse, after hours, and then I felt sick at myself
for what I was imagining. There could be a perfectly good reason why someone had taken
dozens of artsy photos of Linus with no shirt on and posted them online.

I closed my eyes and thunked my forehead in my hands.

“Boys,” Janice said.

“I know, right?” Paige said. “I hope he got paid well.”

“This is not helping,” I said.

The bell tolled out in the quad, and students at the tables around us began getting
up.

“Look, it’s no big deal, Rosie,” Janice said quietly. “So what if some perv took a
bunch of pictures of the kitchen guy? It’s who he is today that matters.”

“His name’s
Linus
,” I said. Who he was today was most likely watching this very exchange on the screen
in the kitchen. I put my head up and straightened my spine. “I have to get to class.
Remind me to run that app on you sometime.”

“It’s just a thing,” Janice said, looking at me strangely. “Don’t be mad.”

“He’s not even on the show,” I said. “He deserves some privacy.”

“Listen, I’m not the one making out with him,” Janice said.

“
You’re
the one who’s drawing attention to him,” Paige said to me. “If he wants his privacy,
all he has to do is stay away from you. Have you thought about that?” She stood and
dropped her napkin on her tray. “Maybe he has something to gain from you. He can get
famous without even being on the show.”

Behind me, the blip rank board started to update with its flipping noise again. I
looked back and forth from Paige to Janice.

“Seriously? You think that’s why he’s hanging out with me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Janice said.

“Not everyone wants to be famous,” I said.

Paige pushed back her hair and picked up her tray. “No, but it can’t hurt. Check out
your blip rank.”

I looked over my shoulder. I’d spiked up three ranks to 45. I was appalled.

Paige grinned at me. “Welcome to
The Forge Show
.”

*   *   *

I could think of only one reason why my blip rank had spiked. Viewers liked to see
me upset. The next thing they would do was look up the Ace Age app. And Linus.

I couldn’t bear to think about the pictures of him I’d seen on Paige’s app, but I
couldn’t stop, either. They bugged me all through my practicum that afternoon, making
me sad and worried for the kid Linus had been. At the same time, Paige had started
me questioning his motives. I’d thought Linus had done me a favor by helping me get
my blip rank high enough to stay on the show, and in the clock tower, I hadn’t thought
twice about why he was kissing me. I’d thought he liked me, but now I had this needling
doubt. He might get something else, something bigger out of being with me.

The whole thing stank.

In the end, the only way to quit obsessing was to focus on my work.

After my practicum, I went back to the Ping-Pong room to check on my cameras, which
I’d left there to charge. Their batteries were full. Now I just had to figure out
where to place the cameras to best spy on the campus at night. My dorm room was a
given. I stuck everything in my backpack and started out the door, only to encounter
Burnham on his way in.

He shifted politely to let me pass, but I backed up, doing the same thing.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hello,” he replied, and after some awkward seesawing, he edged in past me. He flipped
on the overhead lights and headed toward his favorite computer.

“Are you working on your project for DeCoster’s class?” I asked.

“That would be why I’m here.” He eased into his chair and turned on his machine. A
small yellow leaf was stuck to the back of his red sweater, but it wasn’t my business
to tell him so.

“You could work from the K:Cloud anywhere,” I said.

“And yet, I’m here.”

I gripped my thumb under my shoulder strap. “How long are you going to be mad?” I
asked. “I’m just curious.”

“You realize, of course, how irritating it is to be falsely accused of being mad,”
he said.

Oh, boy
, I thought. “That’s real mature.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Well, that’s even more mature. What are you? A grandpa?”

His fingers froze over his touch screen, but he didn’t turn.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, and I backed out of the doorway.

I couldn’t let him goad me into being sarcastic. It made me feel horrible and small.
It wouldn’t happen again.

*   *   *

I put one of the cameras up in the attic of my dorm, aiming out the skylight toward
the dean’s tower. I planted more aiming at the quad, the infirmary, the security office
in the student union, and the roads entering the school. Others I planted in whimsical
places that fit my ghost theme: the graveyard, the chapel, the clock tower, and the
pasture with the lookout tower in the background. At one point, I stopped in the girls’
room, hid in a stall, and experimented with the two walkie-hams, whispering in one
and listening with the other against my ear to be sure they worked. Then I wrote a
note:
8:00, channel 4
, folded that around one of them, and slid it in the pocket of my jeans.

I had set up all but my last two cameras when I veered to the dining hall and found
Linus vacuuming the dining room. He wore no apron, and his white tee shirt had come
untucked from his jeans. He was dodging the chairs that were upturned on the tables
like he’d vacuumed beneath them a million times. A long orange extension cord snaked
out behind him, a dense roar filled the room, and I was seriously tempted to take
footage as I walked toward him.

“Busy?” I called.

He turned off the vacuum, and silence rippled out around him. He turned to face me,
panting a little, and didn’t smile.

Now that I had seen his features from when he was younger, he looked different to
me. His cheeks had outgrown a certain fullness, and his eyes had become cautious at
the corners. He was Linus, today, but underneath he was also the boy from the black-and-white
photos.

“Not cool, Rosie,” he said.

Blushing, I glanced down at the orange cord. “You mean the app,” I said.

“I mean the whole thing. Looking me up. If you want to know something about me, ask
me.” Linus gave the cord a yank, and way on the opposite wall, the plug came out of
the socket.

“Okay,” I said.

He started wrapping the long cord in circles around his arm, fist to elbow. “It’s
not just okay,” he said. “You know that spin-off site for Forge fans? Gorge on Forge?”

Everybody knew it. “Yes?”

“They’ve uploaded the pictures of me that you and Paige found,” he said. “The entire
sequence is right there for anyone to watch. You should see some of the comments.
I guess I’m gay now. And looking for a sugar daddy. Those are the nice ones.”

I felt terrible. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Those people leaving comments, they don’t know
you.”

“Neither do you, really.”

“No,” I agreed. But I wanted to. I should have come to apologize earlier. I fiddled
with the straps of my backpack. “I’m really sorry, Linus. It wasn’t my idea to do
you. I had no idea what Paige would find. I wish I could have stopped her.”

Linus plugged the ends of the extension cord together. “I know it wasn’t your fault
exactly,” he said. Then he added, “I’m not hanging out with you for any stupid fame.”

So he’d heard that, too. I couldn’t believe I’d let Paige make me suspect he wanted
to use me for his own visibility. Someone back in the kitchen banged a pot, and voices
rose for a second. Linus glanced over his shoulder.

“You told me once to ignore the cameras,” I said.

“I was an idiot. They’re impossible.”

I laughed. “Do you want to come walk with me?” I asked. “It’s nice out.”

“I can’t. But thanks.”

I could tell that any second Linus was going to drag the vacuum toward the kitchen,
and I’d lose my chance to give him the walkie-ham. I stepped nearer.

“Whoever took those pictures of you had no right to put them online,” I said.

“I signed away my rights.”

“Kids can’t sign away their own rights,” I said. “With the right lawyer, you could
sue the pants off the original photographer, plus Gorge on Forge. Who owns that site,
anyway?”

“I think it’s a
Forge Show
affiliate, actually,” Linus said.

“Seriously?” I said. “Does Dean Berg know about this?”

Linus considered me thoughtfully. “I’m guessing he does now.”

A phone rang back in the kitchen.

“Don’t you have any privacy rights as someone on staff here?” I asked loudly.

“I do normally, unless I step onstage. Like this, with you,” he said. “Then they’re
forfeit.”

“I would say whatever you did before you came here was offstage, wouldn’t you?” I
asked. “How old were you in those pictures?”

“Thirteen,” he said.

“Thirteen!” I said.

Chef Ted leaned out from the kitchen. “Pitts. There’s a call for you. It’s the dean,”
he said.

Linus moved toward the kitchen, and then turned back toward me.

“Thanks,” he said.

I stepped near to hug him, and when he slowly hugged me back, I slid the walkie-ham
between us and jabbed it hard at his belly. I felt his surprise, but he said nothing,
and when we moved apart, he caught the transfer easily and covered it by maneuvering
the vacuum before him.

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

“Okay, good,” he said.

“You coming, love bird?” Chef Ted called.

Linus took off toward the kitchen while I headed out the door. I could not wait to
talk to him for real, by walkie-ham.

I still had two more cameras to place, and so I went down the pasture toward the observatory.
I stepped past the DO NOT ENTER sign and climbed up the narrow ladder. The dome was
a brighter gray in the sunlight today, and the view was as pretty as ever. From the
catwalk that went around the base of the dome, a second ladder rose higher, to the
five-foot-wide satellite dish that pointed toward the sky. Perfect.

With the thighs of my jeans against the metal edge of the satellite dish, I leaned
toward the center and duct-taped my camera to the pod in the center of the dish. A
strange whisper of noise skimmed over the white surface, deeper than crickets, surprising
me. I flipped the camera on. I expected that it would record nothing but sky for the
visual track, but I had no idea what it might collect for audio.

Alien voices were probably too much to hope for.

*   *   *

That Wednesday night, under the cover of getting ready for bed, I set up my last video
camera, my old one from home. I placed it inside my wardrobe and aimed it out toward
the room. Then I turned it on and nonchalantly left the door ajar. I also managed
to slide my walkie-ham under my pillow while I was folding a few clothes. After Orly
distributed pills, I climbed into my sleep shell, took out my pill, watched my brink
lesson, and pretended to sleep. This time, I kept my lid closed.

Stealth was getting to feel like a routine.

I was dying to see if Linus would come on my walkie-ham. I lay still, waiting while
the clock tower bonged the interminable quarter hours into the night. When at last
it approached eight, I rolled over and hugged my quilt softly to my ear. Then I pulled
out my walkie-ham. I clicked on the little black device and turned the volume as low
as possible, just to listen.

Faint static buzzed from the speaker, so quiet it was barely discernible. By eight,
it was still without a voice.
Come on, Linus
, I thought.
Be there.

I pushed the talk button and spoke so softly I didn’t believe any mic in the room
could pick me up. “Hello?”

Then I released the button to listen again. Still nothing. I kept waiting, trying
not to be disappointed. He might be still working, or walking home, or busy with Otis.

By eight-thirty, I was bummed, but I dialed slowly through the ten channels, listening
carefully to the static on each one and checking back often with channel four. At
nine, my hope plummeted. Maybe the walkie-hams didn’t have enough range to reach between
the dorm and Forgetown. It couldn’t be that Linus didn’t want to talk to me.

Disheartened, I flipped through the dial once more, and at a blip of noise, I stopped.
On channel seven, a voice came in dimly, but it wasn’t Linus’s. A woman had an accent
that I couldn’t identify, sort of Norwegian and British. I rolled over, keeping the
walkie-ham hidden under my quilt, and I turned it up enough to hear.

“Very amusing,” the woman said. “Now, let’s be reasonable. That last bit was exactly
what I’ve been looking for. Invigorating. Intoxicating. I feel ten years younger.
Don’t tease me with this nonsense of her being too fragile to mine for more.”

A second voice came in, laced with annoyance, and it took me a moment to recognize
Dean Berg. I’d never heard him as anything but congenial. “You weren’t supposed to
use it on yourself. Did you even
try
to duplicate it?”