From Chad: I’m here.

I get up and open the door. Chad is a few steps down the hallway heading my way. I beckon him inside and close the door.

“So, good trip up on your branch of the river?” I ask, offering him a water bottle from the fridge.

He waves it away, so I pop it open and take a sip.

“Yeah, things went fine,” he says, stumbling a little as he takes a seat on the couch. “We got all the filters installed. The guys were good workers, so we even got some power generators in. Not a lot, but some.” He leans forward and looks at me. “But none of that is why you wanted to talk tonight, is it?”

Something about the way he’s talking seems a little off, but I can’t quite pinpoint why. Like he’s talking with something in his mouth, but I don’t see anything there. And he’s holding his vowels just a little bit too long. Weird.

“No, it’s not,” I say, taking another sip of water and settling into the chair perpendicular to the couch. “What’s going on with you and your girlfriends?”

“Girlfriends?” he pauses for a second, then chuckles. “Yeah, I guess that’s probably as good a term for them as any.”

“It seemed more polite than any of the alternatives I could think of.”

“Sure. Whatever. I just think of them as my team.”

I try to keep my eyes from rolling, but don’t quite succeed. I’m about to answer when he cuts me off.

“You know what? I’m sick of the way you and Evan and our sisters have been looking at me, all judgmental. Let me tell you a story, brother,” he says, spitting the word out like it has a foul taste. “When I went back to Africa after Father’s funeral, I was in a pretty bad place. I was spending a lot of my day every day with total strangers who I would never see again, and most of the rest of my time all alone moving between work sites.”

I can see he’s intent on getting whatever he wants to say off his chest, so I settle in and let him talk.

“The only people I had regular contact with were my team, and it wasn’t long before they were everything to me. If I was able to get back to wherever any of my people were staying after I finished my last build of the day, I would. They’d make sure I had good food and lodging. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve had to eat in some places when I had to find my own meals. This one town in Tanzania offered to feed me as thanks for the work I was doing, so they gave me their version of a feast of honor and insisted that I drink right out of a cow’s jugular that they cut open just for me. Worst meal ever.”

He laughs his cocky laugh and looks at me expectantly.

“For real?” I ask, humoring him.

“No lie. Dave was on duty that day, and he and I had a long talk afterwards.” He shakes his head. “So gross. But anyway, Keeya and Lucie were by far the best out of my team. They took care of me better than any of my other handlers. I appreciated them. I respected them. I relied on them And that was it. The whole extent of our relationship those first few months. Then we got to my birthday. They were both in Mbeya that day. You’ve never been there, right?”

He glances at me. Something about his posture seems weird, his shoulders are slouching where every picture I have of him in my index shows him with impeccable posture. Is he extra relaxed for some reason? I can’t tell, since his vitals are a little off all around. His temperature is low and his blood pressure is higher than normal. His face is a little flushed too. I’m not sure what’s up with him tonight.

“Of course not,” he answers himself. “Nice town in Tanzania, sits on a lake. The hotel there has clean rooms, good showers, and a stable internet connection, so it had been my hub all that week. Keeya and Lucie insisted that I knock off early that day so they could take me out to celebrate. They even paid for dinner out of pocket and everything. They took me to an American restaurant, a burger place, which is a rare find around that area. Good burger, good fries. I really liked getting regular food when I could, and they knew it. I was legal drinking age that day and Lucie wanted to get me my first beer. You’ve had beer?”

I shake my head.

“It’s gross the first time. Total acquired taste. But I was with two beautiful women, and they each had one, and I was thirsty, so I drank it. And we talked, and we had fun, and then Keeya had to buy me one, too. And then we talked some more, and they got me another one. And maybe one more after that. I’m not completely sure. I think I might have been a little drunk by then. Then Lucie got a little flirty. Put her hands on me. I liked it. Then Keeya started doing it, too. We went back to the hotel. I had an arm around each of them, mostly for support if I remember right. When we got there, they took me up to my room and I thought they’d go back to theirs. But they didn’t. They came inside.”

He fixes me with a look.

“They came into my room. This whole thing is what they wanted.”

I nod. My polygraph readings are all over the place for him, but none of it makes me think he’s lying.

“I know you and Evan have some moral thing going on where you don’t like what Father did for all those women,” he says, his voice dripping with disdain. “What he offered them. What he gave them. You two are morons. Morons. He changed their lives. Gave them a chance to make a difference. Gave them the means to take care of themselves. Let them make a difference in the world however they wanted when they were done.”

His tone change catches me by surprise. He’s acting like such a dick that it’s almost like old Chad is back now. I try to stay diplomatic. I don’t think pushing back will get me what I need from him.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to come to an agreement on that tonight, Chad. Like I said, I’m just trying to keep Father’s vision on track. I want his plan, the plan that we both believe in, to become a reality.”

“Right, of course you do.” His voice drips with obnoxious sarcasm.

“Look, you can do what you want to do when it doesn’t impact me,” I tell him, “but I have to keep the lights on for the Institute. We’ve talked about this. I can show you the accounting if you want, the numbers don’t lie. If you’re going to exercise those childbirth contracts, I need a delay.”

“Good,” he says. “A delay. Glad we’re clear on that.”

His blood pressure is rising, his flushed face is getting more red. I’m not sure what’s riling him up.

“Was that in question?” I ask.

“I thought it was pretty questionable when you sent Louise to go behind my back and try to talk my team out of sleeping with me anymore.”

I take a long sip from the water bottle. There we go, that’s what he’s mad about.

“No snappy answer? No quick response?” he demands angrily.

I shake my head. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Chad. Louise wants the Institute to stay solvent too. I gave it to you straight last time we talked. Louise thought that since the decision affected Keeya and Lucie, it was only fair to talk to them about it.”

“Yeah, sure she did. And you had nothing to do with it. I see you pulling your puppet strings. Like you think you’re the king of everything.” His pulse and blood pressure pick up even more.

“I don’t know what you think my relationship with Louise is like,” I answer, “but if you think I can just tell her what to do, you don’t know either of us very well.”

“Don’t give me that horseshit,” he says, lurching unsteadily towards me. “Your little cabal does whatever stupid shit you tell them to do. You sit around making all the rules then expect the rest of us to just live with your decisions.”

I stare at him incredulously. “Do you know your siblings at all?”

“I know them better than you do. You waltz in, the lost boy, come back home. Act like you belong, like you’re one of us. Like you somehow deserve what we’ve worked and trained our whole lives for just because you have a strand of Father’s DNA in you.”

His pulse is racing and all his vitals indicate he’s heading towards violence, but I don’t care.

“Are you kidding me?” I nearly shout. “My mom died! I didn’t have any choice in any of that. I was basically kidnapped and taken to Father’s compound in the desert! If I’d had my way, I would have stayed with my grandparents up in Denver.”

“You should have,” Chad shouts angrily as he gets unsteadily up to his feet. “You show up out of nowhere. You pretend like you’re one of us. You take my place while I go do what Father needs me to do. Next thing I know, Father’s dead. And you’re somehow running the whole operation. Who the hell do you think you are?”

Something resonates, and a memory pulls loose. For a second, I’m back in Denver, just before Father’s lawyers hauled me off to Nevada. Gramps was holding me, whispering in my ear. “Remember who you are,” he said. I snap back to the present.

“I’m the one trying to save the world, that’s who I am,” I say, slamming my fist on the coffee table and rising to my feet. “I’m the one working longer hours than you every day since the day Father died to make sure that his dream lives on. I’m the one keeping the campus running and the world loving us and making sure that we’ll be able to do more than just dig wells and put up solar panels. I’m the one working with the engineers to make the tech for this trip possible, getting us the tools we need for all the work that I’ve been lining up for the next decade. I’m the one who talks to presidents and generals so they let us in so we can get the work done. I’m the one who gets us permission to turn the Sahara green and make the oceans blue again. I’m the one who is doing the job that you ran away from, the job that requires more effort than flying around and popping a command or two and basking in the adoration of all the people I’m saving. I’m the one you all needed, because none of you could handle doing any of that when Father died. I’m the one doing Father’s job, and doing it better than he ever did. That’s who I am.”

He takes another step towards me. For a moment, I’m sure he’s going to hit me. I brace myself, preparing my bots to shield my face. But the blow doesn’t come.

Instead, Chad sits back down and breaks.

That’s the only way I can describe it. Full blown meltdown. Crying and everything. It’s so weird coming from him. He’s always such a tough guy. According to my index, he didn’t even cry at Father’s funeral.

“I know,” he blubbers. “I ran away. I couldn’t stay there. Not where he worked. Not where everything reminded me of him. I couldn’t do it.”

His words come out in chunks between sobs with lots of stutters and repeats between them. For a second, I’m not sure what to do. I walk over and sit with him on the couch and put a hand on his shoulder. My daily read tells me that Father used to do that with us. It’s all I can think of to comfort him.

Chad spends the next half an hour moaning about how he failed Father, how he should have been there and taken care of us. It’s a weird mixture of patronizing and pathetic. I float some tissues over and let him talk and cry. He seems like he needs it.

“Chad,” I finally say. “It’s OK to just be you. You don’t have to be Father.”

“You’re right. You’re right,” he whispers. “I can’t be him.”

“You’re going to be OK,” I say in my most reassuring voice. ”Just do what you’re good at. You save people every day. That’s all Father wanted from you. You’re great at what you do, and the world needs people like you. We need you.”

That sets him off again. He cries for another good long while, but this time without the obnoxious pretension that he was somehow the one who was supposed to take care of us all. This I can deal with. Grief is something I can understand very well.

We talk for a while, mostly about Father. For all his faults, the man did a lot of good. Eventually, Chad takes a stop in my bathroom to wash up. I sigh a long sigh as I notice the late hour. I’m not going to get much sleep tonight. Chad comes back with his face put back together, but something is different about him. Some of that signature Chad attitude is gone.

“So, not to break the mood,” I say, “but you never did answer that first thing I wanted to talk to you about. Did you end up talking to Lucie and Keeya?”

“Yeah, I did. I did. They both said they’re fine to defer the lump sum payment for two years when they get pregnant. And they both said they want to stay on working with me when they do. Get the lawyer on the line some time and we’ll make the changes to their contracts. They’ll sign whatever we need.”

Not at all what I thought was going to happen, or what I was hoping for, but it’ll work.

“OK. Thanks.”

Chad surprises me by giving me a hug before he leaves. I close the door behind him as he stumbles down the hallway, then lean my head against it for a moment. I think I broke him for real.

I grab my tablet and set an alarm so I’ll be up in time to talk to Lin. It’s very late and I’m tired, but sleep doesn’t feel like its coming on its own. It’s been a really weird day. Mostly just towards the end of it. Being a brother can be exhausting.

SLEEPYTIME