PART III: SCREAM TIME—Chapter 27
You are the player. Wake up.
– Julian Gough, Minecraft End Poem Jessica wants to believe Gavin. She does believe that he believes he got a message from his father. If he were younger or less tech savvy, she might doubt the claim, but he’s been video chatting with friends and relatives for years. She tries on the possibility that he tricked himself somehow via desperate wishful thinking, but it doesn’t fit.
On the other hand, the prospect that someone from the suddenly nefarious online gaming world might use their skills to engage in a hoax chat, masquerading as Gavin’s father, feels all too possible, despite the fact there’s been no mention of Matt’s status in the news.
The first thing she does when the iPad won’t take a charge or turn on again is to call the stateside officer who contacted her when Matt went missing, Corporal Kaufman. He tells her there is no new information, no change of status he is aware of, but he promises to look into it. When his follow up call comes at 2am, Jessica is still awake in bed with the phone on her pillow set to vibrate so it won’t wake Gavin sleeping beside her.
No one in Afghanistan has any news.
The following day, a Military Intelligence Officer visits the house to interview Gavin. Captain Farris is a serious-mannered woman in a crisp uniform, with pretty blonde hair and a rosy complexion. The session is conducted at the dining room table with Jessica present. When asked to describe what his father looked like on the video, Gavin repeats what he told Jessica the previous night—that he was lit from behind and looked like a shadow or silhouette. Gavin can’t say whether or not his father had any wounds or injuries, only that he could tell it was him, even without much detail.
“How could you tell?” Farris asks.
“From the shape, and the way he moved his head.”
“His body language?”
“Yes.”
“What about his voice? Did it sound like him?”
“Sort of… But also, not like him.”
“Not like him how?”
“More like he was talking through metal, like a bell. There was, like, a ringing in his voice. And it was all noisy and laggy.”
“Laggy?”
“Yeah.”
Farris looks at Jessica.
“Like when the internet connection gets jammed up. It lags,” she explains.
The officer nods. “So, it dropped out? The sound went in and out?”
“Yes,” Gavin says.
“You didn’t hear everything he said.”
The relief that flashes across Gavin’s face from this explanation is obvious to Jessica, but she can’t tell if it’s from the officer getting what he’s been trying to say or something else.
“What did your father tell you?”
Now Gavin himself looks laggy, as if his brain is stuck for a second, processing. Then he says, “I didn’t understand what he said.”
“That’s why I’m here, Gavin. Maybe I will, or someone from your dad’s company might. So, I need you to just do your best to remember his exact words. Don’t add to them or change them to try and make sense of what he said. Okay?”
He nods. “I asked him where he was, and he said he was… outside. He said it was the only place he could talk to me, and he said… He said there was something bad there and he walked in its footprints and now he could see ahead.”
Captain Farris writes the quote on her legal pad, the scratching of her pen the only sound in the room. Jessica rubs down the gooseflesh on her arms and thinks maybe she should turn the AC down, but she doesn’t want to step out of the kitchen for so much as a second. Instead, she cups her elbows in her hands and asks, “Does that mean anything to you? Any of it?”
“No, ma’am.” Then to Gavin, “What else did he say?”
“Just… He said he wouldn’t see me too soon and told me to be good and then he said goodbye.”
“That’s all?”
Gavin nods, eyes focused on the woven placemat at the center of the table upon which a vase rests, filled with beach glass.
“Did he ask you to get your mother at any time so he could talk to her?”
Gavin shakes his head. “I wanted to get her, but the call didn’t last that long and then the iPad died.”
“But he said ‘goodbye’ to you.”
“What?”
“You said he said ‘goodbye.’ Did he say that without asking for your mom?”
“I guess. Maybe he asked for her when the sound was getting chopped up.”
Jessica slides into the chair beside Gavin’s and lays her hand gently over his. She can see how stressed he is, so she does her best to keep any edge of accusation out of her voice when she asks, “Why didn’t you call for me when you saw it was him?”
Gavin looks at her, wide-eyed, his jaw working, but no sound coming out, as if he wants to talk but has lost his voice. She leans in closer, maintaining eye contact. “It’s okay,” she says.
“I was afraid to move. I was scared of losing him.”
She squeezes his hand, sniffs to keep her nose from running.
The officer continues, “This is important, Gavin, so I want you to think carefully before answering. Did you hear any other voices or see any other people during the call? Or did it seem like your father was alone?”
“I think he was alone.”
“I know you said he appeared mostly in silhouette, but did he ever seem to be looking at anyone behind the camera or responding to—maybe listening to—someone you couldn’t see or hear?”
“I don’t think so. There was a sound like thunder that he looked behind him at, but that was all.”
“Could that have been an explosion?”
“I guess.”
“And did it look like he was holding the device himself? I mean, the phone or laptop or whatever had the camera in it that he was using to chat with you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see his hands.” The officer jots a note.
“Can you describe anything about the environment around your dad? You say he was outdoors?”
“It looked like a city behind him.”
“He was in a city?”
“He wasn’t in it. It was behind him, like in the distance.”
“And the sun was also behind him? The sun was rising over the city? That would put him to the west of it. Was he overlooking the city, maybe from a mountainside?”
“Uh… It was more like he was below it. Like it went up into the sky.”
“If I brought you photos of some cities, do you think you would recognize it? Did any of the buildings stand out? Maybe you could describe them.”
“I don’t know. It looked sort of like Minas Tirith.”
She stops writing and looks at him. “From The Lord of the Rings?”
“Have you seen the movies?” Jessica asks.
“I’m a fan. But there’s nothing in Afghanistan that looks like that.” Farris sets her pen down. “May I see the device?”
“It’s been dead ever since,” Jessica says. She goes to the living room and returns with the iPad, placing it on the table. Farris presses the switch on the side. Nothing happens.
“We’ve tried charging it,” Jessica says, “but it’s just dead. You don’t even get a power icon when you plug it in.”
“May I take it with me?”
Gavin looks alarmed. Jessica puts a hand on his shoulder. To Captain Farris, she says, “I was hoping to have a friend look at it. A computer expert.”
Now Gavin directs a look of confusion at his mom, but she doesn’t meet it.
“Mrs. Ritter, there may be sensitive information on this device, information that could help us find your husband. I can assure you that the Army’s own computer experts are your best chance of retrieving proof of the call.”
“What do you mean, proof?” Gavin asks.
“I mean the details that could help us trace where it came from. The IP address.”
“When will we get it back?” Gavin asks. “Because I need it for an event.”
“Gavin—” Jessica starts.
“Mom, Scream Time Live is in two days, and I can’t use my lizard without an iPad, and that’s the whole point of going, that I won a lizard.” His lips are trembling. Jessica takes a deep breath, raises a hand, and pats the air slowly.
Captain Farris frames the iPad between her hands on the table and speaks gently to Gavin. It’s a small thing, but Jessica feels disproportionately grateful for it—she knows Gavin’s anxiety about Matt is all mixed up with his stress about the event he’s looking forward to, but she doesn’t think she can handle a meltdown over that trivial bullshit right now. “Gavin, this tablet isn’t going to be of any use to you unless we can get it working again. But our guys are the best. I can’t promise you’ll get it back on time, but I’ll let them know how important it is to you. Maybe as a backup plan, you could borrow one for your event?” She looks at Jessica.
“You can use mine.”
“But yours doesn’t have my game.” This comes out in a squeak, as if he’s afraid to critique the plan but can’t help it.
“We’ll work it out. Finding Daddy comes first, right?”
“Yes.” He buries his face in his hands, his elbows propped on the table, and says through his fingers, “Can I go now?”
Jessica looks at Farris, who nods.
“Yes,” she says.
“You did good, Gavin,” the officer says. “Thank you for your help.”
Gavin hops down from the chair and runs to his room.
Captain Farris slips the tablet into her briefcase and Jessica escorts her to the door.
“I don’t think he imagined it or made it up,” Jessica says.
“In a situation like this, we have to take every lead seriously. It would be unlikely for Sgt. Ritter to have connectivity in the region where he was last seen, but he may be far from there by now, or…”
“Or what?”
“It’s not my place to speculate.”
“Please… do.”
“We have to consider the possibility that he was given access by captors.”
It’s the kind of scenario she has lost sleep over, but after the rush that came with her presumed-dead husband making contact, she hasn’t allowed herself to consider what Gavin could have witnessed if this were the case. For a dizzying few seconds, she thinks she might vomit on this crisp young soldier’s shiny black shoes.
“I don’t know what your son is worried about needing the iPad for, but I recommend you don’t enable his FaceTime account if you lend him yours. If your husband tries to reach out again, you need to be the one to take the call. Is there a reason he would have tried Gavin first instead of you?”
“No. None that I can think of.”
“I saw that you have an iPhone. Enable Gavin’s FaceTime account on that and keep it on you, in case it happens again.”
“Okay.”
Farris shakes Jessica’s hand on the doorstep. “Thank you, Mrs. Ritter. We’ll be in touch.”
Jessica stands in the doorway and watches her walk to the car, the briefcase swinging at her side, and allows herself to hope.